
Class _E_£60. 

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A COLLECTION OF 



THE WRITINGS 



OF 

John James Ingalls 



Essays, Addresses, and 
Orations. 



''''Ad astra per asperaV 



— liKW— 

HUDSON- KIMBEKLY PUBLlSHCNIi CO. 
KANSAS CITY, MO. 



/yw> / 










THt liLKaky Ui- 
CONGRESS. 

Two Copies Received 

DEC 2? 1902 

Copyr.gnt Entry 

'^U., 8'. /CI 01- 

CLASS i?L Ac. No 

^ ■? t i 

COPY B. 



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Copyrighted, 1902, by 
Mrs. John J. Ingalls. 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 



.:• 

t c 
« c e » 



• • « 



• « 



DEDICATION. 

To THE People of Kansas, 

FOR WHOM MY BELOVED HUSBAND LABORED, AND 

TO WHOM HE OWED SO MUCH, 

THIS BOOK IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



The readers of this volume will find on every page excellent 
reasons for its publication. John James Ingalls was such a 
man as does not grow in every soil. He was Kansas incarnate. 
Whatever he said, whatever he wrote, whatever he did, Kan- 
sas was his theme, his motive, and his inspiration. He was 
of the Puritan breed, and the traditions of his New England 
ancestry were with him from his youth up; but when he first 
set foot on the western bank of the Missouri and beheld the 
land of his dreams, he became a devotee, a lover, a worship- 
er of Kansas. His highly- wrought imagination idealized the 
wooded slopes, the deep ravines, the tangled vines, and stretch- 
ing to the illumitable west, the prairies solemn in their vastness 
and mysterious as the sea. As one reads the history of those 
early days, how clearly the truth comes to him that the actual 
is not half the picture. In the deadly conflict between free- 
dom and slavery, men forgot the corn and wheat, and saw only 
the beauty that should come after the Right had won. The 
making of a vState is a grim work, and those brave State-makers 
could not stop to listen to the carols of birds; but some of 
them kept the music in their hearts. John J. Ingalls was a 
bom poet. Brilliant as was his career in the Senate, it yet is 
certain that literature was his true field. 

When Kansas finished her fight with the aliens, her war 
against those who insulted her with shackles, she moved for- 



8 John James Ingalls. 

ward, joyous in her freedom. After the war, people came to 
settle there by thousands. And such a people have never be- 
fore or since built up an American commonwealth. It has been 
fashionable among giddy and unthinking people to make jokes 
about Kansas, — jokes ranging in merit from zero to the bot- 
tomless depths below zero — but meanwhile Kansas has not 
paused in its march to the front. It cannot be denied that 
she has had her freaks and her follies, but let us remember it 
is the stupid, and not the wise, who never err. The heart of 
Kansas has always been right. An educated, enlightened 
people, worshiping the lights of duty, conscience, and truth, 
may briefly go astray, but in the long run they will always be 
found "true to the kindred points of heaven atid home." 

I speak of these things only to vindicate her from the shal- 
low and inconsiderate criticisms of those who do not know her 
historv or appreciate her true position in the Union. She needs 
no defense. The twelfth census is just out, and it tells the 
story of Kansas in the eloquent figures which place her in the 
vanguard of the States. 

The western bank of the Missouri at Atchison is lined with 
bluffs whose rugged sides stand out boldly toward the river 
and the opposite shore. On summer nights it needs no poet's 
eye to see that it is beautiful. The yellow, sluggish river 
changes to molten silver when the rising moon plays upon it 
with the witchery that makes pictures for poets. Once I sat 
upon the bluflf that overlooks the river, when Senator Ingalls 
said: "This is my Euphrates and mv Ganges, and I love to 
think that these turbid waters have rolled, as long as they, 
down to the all-embracing sea." 

He was a lover of home; and no one who was permitted to 
share its sanctities can forget how sweet a place it was. His 



Introductory. 9 

wife and his children were the Hghts of his life,— and he was 
theirs. He did not give his heart to every new-fledged stranger, 
but to those who were his friends, "and their adoption tried," 
he was open and unreserved. Looking back upon a friendship 
of thirty vears, I can say but this : "I knew him well ; I loved 

him well.'" 

What brought him fame? The answer undoubtedly is: 
his own genius. But there were certain collateral influences, 
and mayhap the dominant voice of "Opportunity" had some- 
thing to do with it. The Kansas Magazine, that brilliant ven- 
ture — the child of promise, and of early death— first gave him 
to me, but he had long been known to Kansas people as their 
most brilliant citizen. 

I was new. Arriving in December, 1S71, I first found a 
boarding-house, and then, studied Kansas. The Kansas Maga- 
zine began its brief career in January, 1872. Henry King was 
its editor. I have never known a finer literary judgment 
than his. He had in him the making of a Lowell, or a .Matthew 
Arnold, but the St. Louis Globe-Democrat swallowed him up, 
and now he is editor-in-chief, with many honors and great 
emoluments. 

I lived in a town untrammeled by railroads, but it was 
a Kansas town, and therefore bright, cultivated, and filled 
with educated people. The Kansas Magazine was a forlorn 
wager bv certain enthusiasts, that Kansas could maintain a 
high-class literary monthly. They lost; but losing, they won. 
John J. Ingalls, the most brilliant of its contributors, became 
United States senator because he wrote "Catfish Aristocracy" 
and "Blue Grass." 

His career was a stormy one ; but above the stress of events 
there was always a consoling influence in wife, children, friends, 



lo John James Ingai^ls. 

and the blessed ministration of letters. I came upon him once 
in the midst of a terrible senatorial struggle, of which he was 
the central figure, and found him reading Charles L-amb's 
"Essays of Elia." He was self -poised always, and I never 
saw him thrown from the even balance which he habituallv 
maintained. 

The summer preceding Mr. Ingalls' election to the Senate 
was warm in more senses than one. The liberal Republican 
movement, headed by Horace Greeley, was on, taking from us 
many of the old "war-horses" of the party, leaving big scars in 
the ranks, which sadly worried our leaders. Fresh from Wis- 
consin, I became a delegate to the great Ivawrence convention 
of 1872, which nominated lyowc, Phillips, and Cobb for Con- 
gress. The story of that convention has long since ceased to 
be interesting or important. But this much I must tell: Mr. 
Ingalls was made permanent chairman. I came up from 
Montgomery County, very youthful and very verdant, having 
behind me only six months' residence in the State. I had never 
seen Mr. Ingalls, but had been captivated by his articles in The 
Kansas Magazine. It was, I think, on the evening of the first 
day that the convention adjourned over until ten or eleven 
o'clock the following day. After breakfast, I was introduced 
to Mr. Ingalls, and we sat together in front of the Eldredge 
House, enjoying the bright summer sun and air. Then — how 
it came about I know not — we started for a walk down Massa- 
chusetts Avenue. Before we came back to the convention, 
we had talked about man}^ things — but not one word of poli- 
tics. Books and literature occupied a place in our hearts that 
morning far above the approaching struggle in the convention. 

The following winter he was elected senator, and held his 
seat for eighteen years. 



Introductory. ii 

I shall not discuss his career in the Senate. In the public 
records it is amply disclosed. He was a great senator, honored 
by his fellow-members, who made him President pro tern., and 
looked up to him as the best presiding officer in that body. 

Great men, almost without exception, have a fine sense of 
humor. To prove this, Shakespeare alone suftices. Abraham 
Lincoln would have broken down under the tremendous strain 
of the war, had not a merciful Providence enabled him to see 
the humorous side of daily events. The humor of Senator 
In^alls was of a most subtle character. His mind was so alert 
that he could not wait the slow processes of ordinary humor, 
but must burst forth spontaneously in sudden and unexpected 
flashes of repartee and epigram. In debate he was without 
an equal in the Senate. A Pennsylvania senator once made 
an attack on Kansas. Instantly Ingalls rose to reply, and not 
content simply to defend his own State, he dashed straight 
into the weak points of Pennsylvania. To stand on the defen- 
sive was never his way. He said: "Mr. President, Pennsyl- 
vania has produced bujt two great men; Benjamin Franklin, 
of Massachusetts, and Albert Gallatin, of Switzerland." Noth- 
ing was left for the Pennsylvania senator but to beat a hasty 
retreat. 

He was a scholar, and all his tastes were scholarly and 
refined. His knowledge of words, and his unerring skill in 
choosing always the right one, were proverbial. In debate I 
believe he was superior to John Randolph, who, in his day, 
was the terror of his opponents. He was such a splendid 
fighter that many people think of him simply as the great mas- 
ter of invective and of pitiless sarcasm; but read "Blue Grass," 
or his article on Albert Dean Richardson, or his beautiful trib- 



12 John James Ingalls. 

lite to Ben Hill, and the kindly elements of his nature become 
strongly and sweetlv visible. 

In my study hangs a frame which encloses an autograph 
copy of the greatest of American sonnets. I am not at all 
certain that it is not the greatest sonnet in our language. The 
sonnet is a highly artificial form of versification with its mechan- 
ical regularity of fourteen lines, and is therefore the easiest 
kind of a poem to write. Vou set the clock, and when it has 
run down, you have the sonnet, which almost always is a mere 
piece of automatic verse, signifying nothing. The little prat- 
tling poets turn them out in great nitmbers. But because it is 
easy, the sonnet is the most difficult of all forms of verse. How 
manv good sonnets have been written in the English language? 
Only a few, and they only by the great ones. Shakespeare did 
everything better than anyone else in all the world. But how 
many of Shakespeare's sonnets do you remember? In almost 
every one there are flashes of genius that mark them as Shake- 
speare's legitimate offspring; but manv of tliem are involved 
and hard to understand. Mr. Ingalls^ was once visiting me in 
Topeka, and we arranged to take a ride the next morning up 
the west bank of the Kaw, into the country of the bluffs and 
meadows. On the top of a bluff we stopped and looked out 
on the beautiful landscape touched with the morning light, — 
such a landscape as is known onlv in Kansas, — when suddenlv 
he turned to me, waving his hand outward to that scene of sur- 
passing beauty, and began reciting the famous Thirtv-third 
Sonnet of Shakespeare: 

"Full many a glorious morning have I seen 

Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, 
Kissing with golden face the meadows green. 
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy." 



In'Troductorv. 13 

He knew and loved the sonnet, but he also knew its limita- 
tions. That fine critical judgment could never have been led 
into the folly of giving to the w^orld an ordinary, commonplace 
sonnet, which is the last infirmity of shallow minds. 

After Shakespeare, the great sonnets of our language were 
written by Milton, Wordsworth, Keats, and Mrs. Browning, 
with one or two by Landor, Leigh Hunt, and Lowell. But 
when 1 try to think of one superior or even equal to "Oppor- 
tunity," — I seek in vain. 

As I have said, the sonnet hangs in my study, written in 
his bold, large hand, and as I read it a thousand memories 
crowd upon me. From the sordid environment of this great 
commercial city, I waft him a sad farewell, and beg that I 
too may be counted with those who have loved Kansas and 
believed in her to the uttermost. 

George R. Peck. 

Chicago, November T,o, 1902. 




0k> -9. J'(ff&^ 



JOHN JAMES INGAIvLS. 



Confessing Emerson 's estimate of a man to be safe and sub- 
stantial, it is easy to foretell the position that posterity will 
award John James Ingalls. " I count him a great man," says 
the Sage of Concord, "who inhabits a higher sphere of thought, 
into which other men rise with labor and with difficulty, * * 
who is what he is from nature, and who never reminds us of 
others." 

By this rule of isolated personality, John James Ingalls is 
certain of racial immortality. His contemporaries may fail to 
to give true judgment, because immediateness makes for exag- 
geration or depreciation ; but posterity will give the unerring, 
infallible decision. In that higher sphere of thought where he 
moved with ease and grace, few men lived. In vain do we 
scan the horizon of our history for another who reminds us of 
him. To him whose name is identified with one single poem, 
an isolated law, or a discovery in science, enduring testimonial of 
greatness is often denied. The man whose life is an impulse 
to his own generation and to the generations following, who is 
the center of an ever-widening influence, in whatever realm of 
action, never dies. The prophetic instinct bears witness that 
the memory of John James Ingalls, in oration, essay, and per- 
sonal impulse, will never fall within the shadow of oblivion. 

For a quarter of a century he played a distinguished part on 
the stage of human events, lending lustre to the drama of our 



17 



i8 John James Ingalls. 

national life. In all those years he stood by the side of men 
whom posterity now delights to honor, and suffered no de- 
crease. His star was ever in the ascendant until the hour it 
-disappeared to shine upon a wider horizon. 

In the most wonderful, most dazzling and individual-eclipsing 
-epoch of all history, he commanded the attention of a mighty 
people, whose power and intelligence are unparalleled in the 
story of man. From his colleagues, who displayed a large- 
ness commensurate with the largeness of the age in which 
they lived, he compelled admiration. About him men arose 
whose light gleamed for awhile and then disappeared, but 
his flame neither flickered nor failed. At a time when oratory 
was called a lost art. he never wanted a thronging, interested, 
and enthusiastic audience. In an era when the storm of 
books, magazines, and newspapers cheapened literature, dulled 
the aesthetic instinct, and stultified thought, his words upon 
the printed page quickened the intellect and made luminous 
the power of the Anglo-Saxon's language. In an age when 
demagoguery abounded, rioting in deception, hypocrisy, and 
lamentable ignorance, his integrity went unchallenged, his 
leadership was consistent, undisputed, and without guile. 
Whether in the Senate Chamber, in the forum of political 
debate, or in the realm of literature, he struck and sustained 
the loftiest notes in thought and speech, and made his melody 
a fascination. To encompass his personality from a single 
view-point is impossible. Of his work and his life there will 
be as many estimates as there are individuals seeking his 
measure. While he lived, his every step was bitterly con- 
tested by marv-elous hostility, and admirably supported by 
wonderful and indestructible lovaltv. The State of Kansas 



John James IngaIv1.s. 19 

never produced his equal ; the Nation has presented but few 
who were his superiors. 

For the hidings of his power we need not seek far. The 
qualities of mind and heart that lifted him above his fel- 
lows had their secret springs in a magnificent ancestry. Tn 
the study of his career there is no one point at which his 
biographer can forget the influence of the mighty Puritan 
stock from which he sprang. The blood and iron that made 
this Nation supreme in all the world vitalized his every 
thought and word and deed. From that same ancestry 
sprang James, A. Garfield, twentieth President of the United 
States, and Salmon P. Chase, forever a monumental figure in 
our history. Richly endowed by Nature with the mysterious 
forces of ancestry, her lavish bounty flowed full and free in 
the creation of his environment. 

It is the destiny of genius to be presented against a dark 
background. The progress of civilization is through up- 
heaval, and the development of power comes by conflict with 
adverse forces. Circumstances do not make the individual, 
nor are they made by him. They give him the opportunity 
to make himself. Had John James Ingalls remained in New 
England, his name now might dwell with those of Longfel- 
low, Emerson, Whittier, and Holmes in the memory of the 
people. In early college days the prophecy of this possi- 
bility was given. There are many who, losing the signifi- 
cance of his life, regret that he refused to the sovereignty of 
literature his genius, and entered the realm of politics. But 
the conspiracy of Providence is not to be challenged. Destiny- 
determined him as one of the great architects of a mighty 
empire. The power of his personality is silhouetted against 
the dark and tearful and bloody background of the stormful 



20 John James Ingalls. 

beating years that mark the travail of the Nation and the 
birth of Kansas; the State whose sponsor was Liberty, whose 
baptism was with the rich red blood of the apostles of free- 
dom and the champions of an unshackled civilization. 

Above the mantel-piece in the library of his beautiful 
home, Oak Ridge, in Atchison, hangs a copy of a highly col- 
ored lithograph setting forth the advantages of the West — 
the allurement that attracted his youthful attention and 
persuaded his separation from his Eastern home and his 
migration to the great Territory which was to forever bear 
the impress of his life and work. His entrance into national 
affairs was neither through the portal of accident nor by the 
"sesame" of influence. For him law left no place for chance. 
The circumstance was fortuitous only through careful arid 
painstaking preparation. When the hour struck, he was 
ready. Long before he entered the United States Senate, he 
had resolved upon that very thing. Years before his elec- 
tion by the Legislature of Kansas, careful and cautious pol- 
iticians had predicted that very event. Of his years in 
national affairs let his biographer, at some future date, speak 
in detail. The mere announcement that he was to speak 
crowded the Senate Chamber and galleries. 

Honored by the selection of his colleagues as their pre- 
siding officer, his execution of the duties of that office drew 
from them a complimentary resolution. Upon the walls of 
the library of that home may be found the original of this 
resolution. It is interesting, reading thus : 

"Resolved, That the thanks of the Senate are due, and are hereby ten- 
dered, to Hon. John J Ingalls. a Senator from the State of Kansas, for the 
eminently cotirteous, dignified, able, and absolutely impartial manner in 
which he has presided over the dehberations and performed the duties of 
President pro tempore of the Senate. 

"Attest: Anson G McCook, Secretory." 



John James Ingalls. 21 

The Senate, as an additional evidence of appreciation of 
liis services as presiding officer, bestowed upon him the clock 
which had marked the time for that body from 1852 to 1890; 
and it now strikes the solemn hours above the landing of the 
stairway in Oak Ridge. 

The agrarian movement in Kansas reached its full 
force and fury in the summer of 1890. It was the sequence 
of years of hardship and disaster. The Government was 
blamed for the acts of Providence. Reason temporarily 
abdicated her throne, and vagary held full sway. Upon the 
senior senator from the vState was concentrated the storm 
intended for his party. He was the one colossal, solitary 
figure in the affairs of state to the people of Kansas, and to 
them he was the incarnation of the party in power, which 
thev proposed to dislodge. His name became the clarion 
cry for inciting the onset of foe, and for stimulating the rally 
of friends. It was a national political battle, fought within 
the confines of the State, and the platforms were simply 
Ingalls and anti-Ingalls. No human could stem the tide. 
The people fell under the hypnotic influence of strange gods. 
A sacrifice was demanded, and the proudest, manfullest, and 
most potent figure in the State must be the fit oft'ering. He 
breasted the storm and contested every inch of ground. 
Undismayed by sullen threat, he fought — fought, not for 
himself, his prestige, and his ambition, but for the State that 
had given him much, and to which he had in return given 
fame such as Providence had not granted to any other fortu- 
nate individual to bestow upon his State. At no time in 
that conflict did he consider what defeat meant to him. 
Always present was the thought that if the mad effort suc- 
ceeded, it must mean a blot upon the name of Kansas, the 



2 2 John James Ingalls. 

State he loved with a love surpassing woman's. When the 
decision came, and with it his retirement, it held no personal 
heart-hurt. If by his defeat the State would profit, he was 
satisfied. At that time men predicted, and to-day men con- 
fess, that in the hour of his enforced retirement from the United 
States Senate, Kansas did herself a grievous hurt. No one 
has yet replaced him, and the State holds none other who can 
be accounted his peer. 

Had he been less great, the word " finis" would have been 
written a decade before he died. But Kansas thrust him from 
the Senate Chamber, and gave him to the world. Upon the 
platform, through magazine and newspaper, he wrought an 
ever-increasing influence. The effulgence of his star bright- 
ened continually until it swept over the invisible boundary of 
life. His love for Kansas never failed ; his loyalty to the State 
of his adoption never wavered. Easily her most distinguished 
son, it was natural that alluring opportunities should troop 
upon him with persuasion to change his residence where finan- 
cial gain would be more easily and more rapidly attained ; but 
these he steadfastly refused. Of Kansas he wrote and sang 
and spoke. As long as the English language endures, his 
tributes to her magnificence will never die. His dreamless 
sleep is upon her bosom — he was faithful to her even unto 
death. No honor that the State can bestow upon his mem- 
ory will pav the final debt to this her most gifted and most 
famous son, 

Marvelous indeed was his genius. His mighty brain knew 
neither rest nor respite. No vagrant moments drifted into his 
life. He was all energy and intensity. The boundless realm 
of literature paid tribute to his desire for knowledge. His 



John James Ingalls. 23, 

style, almost a new creation, sprang full-orbed from laborious 
study of the masters of the language in which he wrote and 
spoke. Closely, carefully, and impartially he studied the polit- 
ical and social problems of his age, never ceasing to be a 
scholar and a philosophical thinker. Of his fame as an orator 
and rhetorician I need not speak. His voice was a great organ 
for sound and melody. The tongue that could pierce and 
strike like a two-edged sword could also drip with twilight 
dew and golden honey. His style was almost perfect. 

For his State he was ambitious; for himself he asked but 
little. For his home he dreamed dreams of beauty and hap- 
piness, and accounted no sacrifice too great to make it such. 
Personally careless of the honors that were thrust upon him, 
he rejoiced in them only for the sake of his friends and family. 
By those who knew him least he was thought to be cold and 
selfish, but no heart ever beat in more reasonable consonance 
with the misfortunes of the lowly, and no human, however 
obscure his estate, was there who did not receive from him the 
courtesy that marks the majesty of a gentleman. In the 
cities and villages that dot the wide empire which he aided to 
develop, there are scores of men who yield to him the tribute 
of love which his helpfulness and cheer, in their desolate and 
youthful hours, commands of them. Nothing marks his 
greatness as a man more than does the little incident in that 
last great political campaign which he fought, when the storm 
beat sorely against him and when he saw life's hopes and 
aspirations for future service to the State shadowed by the 
cloud of defeat. Other men might, and doubtless would, 
have refused to do what he did — give a precious hour to an 
obscure and friendless lad, inspiring his youth and buttressing 



24 John Jame;s Ingai^ls. 

his courage by rich suggestions and rare advice — doing all this 
simply because his heart was as the springtime's bloom. His 
was the simplicity of gianthood. 

Therefore, there can be no wonderment that his children, 
adoring him as a mighty figure in the affairs of state, linger- 
ingly hung about the fatherhood so full of rich and fragrant 
love that he never failed to pom- in endless bounty upon them. 
Proud though his dear wife might be of his honor and his fame, 
her richest memory is that of the choice comradeship which, 
without interruption, always existed between them. Be this 
the greatest tribute to his memory, that the home — his haven 
of rest from "the foolish wrangle of mart and forum" — which 
he founded, was always his first and last thought. 

Strange that even the heedless and the unthinking should 
have believed him to be irreligious. No one pondered the 
:great facts of God and Immortality more than he. To him 
life beyond the grave was a fact, irrefutable and indestructi- 
ble. For him the Scriptures were exhaustless in their wealth of 
thought and food for meditation. God was the All-Father who 
never hated anything that He created, but loved His children 
with a love beyond the comprehension of the human. When 
his bark was finally launched upon "the tides that ebb for- 
ever and whose waters are never darkened by the shadow of a 
returning sail," his face was serene and confident. He fell 
asleep, as does a child tired from the day's work and play. The 
night had scarcely ebbed, the day was yet crepuscular and 
faint. By his side stood his youngest son; holding his hand, 
his wife, the faithful sweetheart of all his years, murmured the 
solemn litany of the prayer which our Lord taught His dis- 
ciples. Slowly he repeated the words after her, lingeringly he 
touched her hand — then the great soul winged its way to the 



John JamSS Ingalls. 25 

undiscovered country, and upon his life fell the benediction, 
' Xove is of God ; and every one that loveth is born of God, 
and knoweth God." 

"Then from the dawn it seem'd there came, but faint 
As from beyond the limit of the world, 
Like the last echo born of a great cry, 
Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice 
Around a king returning from his wars." 

Edward Frederick Trefz. 
Kountze Memorial Church, 

Omaha, Neb. 



MEMOIR. 



CHAPTER I. 

Men make a nation. 

"States are not great 
Except as men may make them." 

National life, strong and individual in character, seemingly 
the result and product of single instances and of personal action, 
is, in reality, the aggregate activity of the millions who live 
under the shadow of the flag. History deals largely with indi- 
viduals. We talk of Washington, Lincoln, and many others, as 
though each in his day held in his single person all the mighty 
forces which controlled the national destiny. We speak of 
Grant, and Thomas, and Sherman, and Togan, and Sheridan 
as though they forged together and welded into unity the diver- 
gent national elements now the foundation of our glorious 
country. We write of money-kings and wheat-kings, — of polit- 
ical bosses and the heads of labor unions. But as the ocean 
misses one drop of all its myriads, as the giant cedars of Cal- 
ifornia feel the loss of one woody fiber, so, one penny less, a 
sheaf of wheat missing, a single vote awry, one single crafts- 
man outside the fold, and the money sovereign, the grain sov- 
ereign, the king of the ballot-box and of the crafts, consciously 
or unconsciously suffer loss. 

Bach human soul has a potency and a value, — a place to 
fill in the universe. And that is why it is a human soul. 

27 



28 John James Ingalls. 

And yet to urge that "all men are created free and equal" 
is to fall into error. All men are not created free: neither are 
all men created equal, and history stands ever ready to over- 
throw the fallacious doctrine. While each man, like each blade 
of grass, has a place and power, yet there are men and men. 
Their names in the printshop range from brilliant type to great 
primer in lower case, and in small and large capitals above that. 

"All the world' s a stage, 
And all the men and women merely players." 

The drama of life is accurately portrayed by Shakespeare. 
Men of every station appear upon the stage. They stand a 
moment in full view, and then are swallowed up by the resist- 
less tide of time. Many of them play insignificant parts. And 
while the play cannot proceed without them, they are not given 
name and mention in the dramatis personce. So it is in the 
drama of history. The lower-case men rarely get in at all by 
name, though many are heroes, and most of the real work of 
the world is done by them. They assert themselves as a body, 
and not as individuals. This seeming injustice is compensated 
by Nature. The men who labor possess and preserve the 
genius of a people ; and they perpetuate the true tendency of a 
nation. The cradles of the truly great in this world have been 
rocked by the hand of the lowly, not infrequently by the pov- 
erty stricken. But it is not to be denied that the play has 
alwa3's concerned itself mainly with large and small capitals. 

Now, if the figure be not too long drawn out, somewhere in 
this upper-case in the size of type which the perspective of time 
will justify, will be set the name of John James Ingalls. In 
the annals of Kansas it will be "writ large," for these annals 
cannot be written without it. 



Memoir. 29 

A strange, brilliant, unique figure in our history, with few 
claims to the vast elements of imperishable renown in public 
affairs, he is yet an inseparable part of [an important era of our 
national life, and a strong factor in the growth and glory of one 
of our most illustrious States. 

But beyond the man whom the world knew, or, rather, 
guessed at, was the man himself— the figure inside the but- 
toned-up exterior known only as thinker, scholar, poet. Be- 
yond and inside this severe and formal figure buffeted about 
by the agitated tides which try and trouble men, was the 
husband, the father, the friend. And since the press, polit- 
ical enemies, and mere acquaintances have exploited the first 
man and sat in judgment on him, it is just and fitting that 
this memoir should seek to portray the true and inner man. 



CHAPTER II. 

Edmund Ingalls came from England to Massachusetts in 
September, 1628. He was accompanied by his brother Fran- 
cis. They were members of Governor Endicott's colony, and 
landed at Salem in September. Francis left no male descend- 
ants; his daughter Mary married Roger Belknap. 

Nothing of a definite nature is known of the Ingalls family 
prior to the arrival of Edmund and Francis in America. The 
traditions of the family recite that these brothers came from 
Lincolnshire. No proof of this is known to exist; and the 
place of their birth is unknown. 

These brothers seem to have been young men of enter- 
prise; for immediately upon their arrival in America they 
secured a grant of land from the colonial authorities. The 
grant contained one hundred and twenty acres. They be- 
gan at once to improve it, and followed farming and stock- 
raising; they also established a tannery on their farm, where 
they engaged in the manufacture of leather. Their farm was 
in what is now Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts, of which 
city they were the founders and first settlers. The date of 
this settlement cannot be determined exactly, but is known 
certainly to have been in the winter of 1628-9. 

While the Ingalls family can be traced only to the coming 
of the brothers Edmund and Francis as members of the colony 
of Governor Endicott, the name is known to be of Scandi- 
navian origin. In the northern lands of Northwestern Europe 
it was anciently borne by the royalty, Ingialld appearing as 

30 



Memoir. 3 1 

the twenty-second in the Norwegian dynasty and as the 
thirteenth in the Danish dynasty. The name Ingialldr is 
found in the royal lists of Sweden, one by such name having 
been king of that country, A. D. 600 It is probable that 
the name was carried to England in the Danish conquest, 
which began in A. D. 787. The old chronicles relate that 
in that year the "Danes," really the people of Scandinavia, 
crossed the North Sea and swarmed along the shores of Brit- 
ain. They swept up the great rivers in irresistible hordes 
and began a war of extermination upon the tribes of their 
own kindred, the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons, who, more than 
three hundred years before, had exterminated the ancient 
Britons in those regions. These pagan barbarians undoubt- 
edlv carried the name — Ingalls — to England in their relent- 
less conquest. 

Had we time, we would find it instructive and interesting 
to study these fierce old nations. Even in their barbarous 
state there could be found among them the virtues for which 
the Aryan race was ever noted. They fostered justice and 
equality before the law, and established assemblies of the 
people for the transaction of business of a public nature. 
They were intolerant of tyranny and were ever lovers of lib- 
erty. In their society women held a high place. They pos- 
sessed an indomitable courage; and through admixture with 
the Normans, a kindred people, they obtained capacity for 
great enterprises and genius for the establishment of stable 
and just government never before equalled in the world. 
Their descendants, of whom Edmund Ingalls was one, came 
into the rude wilderness of North America, and in turn became 
the progenitors of a race with hardy and lasting virtues and 
carried conquest from ocean to ocean. "In them was renewed, 



32 John James Ingai^ls. 

with all its ancient energy, that wild and daring spirit, that 
force and hardihood of mind, which marked our barbarous 
ancestors of Germany and Norway." 

Edmund Ingalls fell a victim to accident. In August, 
1648, he found it necessary to visit Boston, then, as now, the 
commercial metropolis of Massachusetts. Keeping in mind, 
as the Puritans were ever prone, that life is uncertain and 
death inevitable, he made his will, dating it August 28, 1648. 
On the way to Boston, traveling on horseback, he fell through 
a defective bridge, receiving such injuries that he died from 
their effects a few days thereafter — exact date unknown. 

Edmund Ingalls left eight children — among them Henry, 
the sixth child and the third son. By his father's will, Henr>^ 
had the "house lot bought of Goodman West," also land in 
what is now called Chelsea (Andover, Massachusetts). 

This son, Henry, lived to a great age, dying February 8, 

1 7 18, being then "about 90." He was twice married; first 
to Mary Osgood, at Andover, July 6, 1653, who was at that 
time of the age of twenty-one. Their second son was named 
Henrs'; bom December 8, 1656; died February 8, 1698. 

Henry, the son of Henry, married Abigail, the daughter 
of John Emery, of Newbury, June 6, 1688. Their fourth child 
and second son was Francis; bom December 20, 1694; died 
Januar}' 26, 1759. 

Francis married his cousin, Lydia Ingalls, November 19, 

1719. Their fourth son, Francis, was born January 26, 1731; 
died April 3, 1795. 

Francis, son of Francis, married Eunice Jennings, Novem- 
ber 12, 1754. [He lived in Andover, where he died April 3, 
1795. Their sixth son, Theodore, was bom March 30, 1764; 
died November 7, 18 17, at Middletown, Massachusetts. 



Memoir. 33 

Theodore, son of Francis and Eunice, was three times 
married. The third marriage was with Ruth Fhnt. The 
only son of Theodore and Ruth FHnt was EHas Theodore^ 
who was born October 7, 18 10; died December 28, 1892. 

Elias Theodore, son of Theodore and Ruth FHnt, mar- 
ried EHza Chase, daughter of Samuel Chase, December 27,. 
1832. Their first-born was John James Ingalls, the subject 
of this brief memoir. 

Elias Theodore Ingalls was educated with the design that 
he should become a minister in the Congregational Church,, 
of which his ancestors had been honored members. He grad- 
uated from Bradford Academy, and was above the average 
in his attainments. Poor health made it necessary for him 
to abandon his intention to enter the ministry, and he began 
a successful business career. He formed a partnership with 
Samuel Chase, in Haverhill, in 1827. He married his part- 
ner's daughter. In 1833 he established himself in Middle- 
town, Massachusetts, as a merchant and manufacturer. He 
was a pioneer in the manufacture of shoes by machinery. In. 
1859 his factory turned out six hundred pairs of shoes a day. 
In conducting his business he did not forget his love for liter- 
ature, but kept abreast of the advancement of the time. He 
was one of the leading spirits in a society of which the poet 
Whittier was a member, and was always fond of the Greek 
poets. He took an active interest in the affairs of the Con- 
gregational Church. He was long independent in his polit- 
ical action, but became finally a staunch Democrat, though 
originally a Whig. Later he became a Free Soiler, and then 
an Abolitionist. He lived in Haverhill, Massachusetts, the 
greater part of his life, and died there. 



34 John James Ingalls. 

John James Ingalls, the oldest son of Elias Theodore and 
Eliza Chase Ingalls, was born in Middletown, Massachusetts, 
December 29, 1833. The ancient Hebrews numbered their gener- 
ations, counting from some important epoch. Reckoning thus, 
we find him in the eighth generation from Edmund Ingalls, 
the Puritan immigrant from England, who, with his brother 
Francis, also a Puritan immigrant, founded and first settled 
the city of Lynn, in 1628. This was in the eighth vear from 
the landing of the Pilgrims. For nearly three hundred years 
the family founded by Edmund Ingalls has lived in America. 
Its members have done their full share in the work of build- 
ing the greatest republic the world has known. Such ances- 
try is illustrious. 

There was nothing unusual observed in his youthful dis- 
position. He was fond of sports dear to every bov. These 
were, though, sometimes irksome to him. He would lose 
interest in games or other pursuit of pastime or pleasure and 
become sedate and even unhappy. At such times he sought 
the society of his mother, where he remained quiet, thought- 
ful, and usually uncommunicative. He was reared in the 
Church of his fathers, attending there regularly, often writ- 
ing out the sermon almost word for word upon his return from 
the Sunday morning ser^•ice. 

The boy grew into youth, and was kept in school as has 
ever been the good Xew England custom. He was made 
read}- for college at the Haverhill High School and by private 
teachers. He entered Williams College, at Williamstown, 
Mass., in 1851, at the beginning of the course, and remained 
throughout, graduating in the class of 1855. Few incidents 
-of his college days are preserved. It is known that he loved 



Memoir. 35 

the pranks of college students, and was not behind others in 
their design and execution. 

A few months prior to his graduation he was unjustly 
reprimanded by the president of the college. His sense of jus- 
tice was supreme, and he resolved to take substantial sat- 
isfaction for what he regarded as an attempt to humiliate 
him. He prepared his commencement oration with this pur- 
pose of revenge in mind, taking for his subject "Mummy 
Life." Such a castigation of solemn professors and college 
oflficers had not before been written. It was necessary that 
it should be submitted for revision, and the faculty eliminated 
the major portion of it. He took the precaution to pay all 
fees and dues before Commencement, exacting a receipt show- 
ing him entitled to a certificate of graduation as a Bachelor 
of Arts. The faculty had not thought of the declamation 
of the original oration. Imagine their surprise when, in the 
keen, defiant, sarcastic manner of which he was even at that 
time master, he delivered his oration as it was originally 
written. He was commanded repeatedly to cease speaking, 
but he held forth to the end. When his diploma was handed 
him at the conclusion of the exercises, it proved a blank, so 
far as any testimonial of meritorious scholarship was con- 
cerned. But, relying upon his rights in the matter, and 
armed with his treasurer's receipt showing the liability of 
the college, he demanded his diploma, as a matter of right, 
stating firmly at the same time that he would bring a suit 
in law to compel compliance in case of refusal to issue it to him. 
A few days thereafter he was given a diploma in due form, 
and the incident was closed. Twenty-five years later his 
Alma Mater chose him to deliver the annual oration, and at 
that time, voluntarily and without solicitation, conferred 
upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws. 



CHAPTER III. 

"I was a student in the junior class at Williams College," writes Mr, 
Ingalls, "when President Pierce, forgotten but for that signature, approved 
the act establishing the Territory of Kansas, May 30, 1854. I remember 
the inconceivable agitation that preceded, accompanied, and followed this 
event. It was an epoch. Destiny closed one volume of our annals, and, 
opening another, traced with shadowy finger upon its pages a million epi 
taphs ending with 'Appomattox.' 

"Floating one summer night upon a moonlit sea, I heard far over the 
still waters a high, clear voice singing: 

" ' To the West ! To the West ! To the land of the free, 
Where the mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea; 
, Where a man is a man if he 's willing to toil, 
And the humblest may gather the fruits of the soil." 

"A few days later, my studies completed, I joined the uninterrupted 
and resistless column of volunteers that marched to the lands of the free. 
St. Louis was a squalid border town, the outpost of civihzation. The rail- 
road ended at Jefferson City. Transcontinental trains with sleepers and 
dining-cars annihilating space and time were the vague dreams of the future 
century. 

"Overtaking at Hermann a fragile steamer that had left the levee the 
day before, we embarked upon a monotonous voyage of four days along 
the treacherous and tortuous channel that crawled between forest of Cot- 
tonwood and barren bars of tawny sand, to the frontier of the American 
Desert. 

' ' It was the mission of the pioneer with his plough to abolish the fron- 
tier and to subjugate the desert. One has become a boundary and the 
other an oasis. But with so much acquisition something has been lost for 
which there is no equivalent. He is unfortunate who has never felt the 
fascination of the frontier; the temptation of unknown and mysterious 
soUtudes; the exultation of helping to build a State; of forming its insti- 
tutions and giving direction to its cause." 

After his graduation in 1855, young Ingalls applied him- 
self to the study of law. Two years later, at the age of 24, 

36 



Memoir. 37 

"he was admitted to the Essex County bar. But Haverhill 
presented few opportunities to a wide-awake young man of 
studious mind and keen penetrability. It is not strange 
that this young man, with the natural ambition of youth 
and with a conscious sense of his power even then to sway 
men with his mentality, should find in the West an alluring 
field. 

A lithograph of the town of Sumner, Kansas, displayed 
by an enterprising real-estate agent, attracted Mr. Ingalls 
to the State. In 1858, three years before its admission to 
the Union, he came to Kansas and sought this town of Sum- 
ner. It was at that time a thriving little frontier settlement 
in the prime of its booming days, and with a promise of a 
growing, prosperous future. Two years later a Kansas tor- 
nado blew Sumner off the map, and Mr. Ingalls removed to 
Atchison. Here for forty years he made his home; not only 
that, but he gave to the city a chance to get into history 
because it was the home of him who came to be in many 
respects one of the most noted citizens of Kansas, and in 
some respects her most illustrious son. 

That Mr. Ingalls should enter politics was inevitable. 
That he should soon become a power therein was likewise 
inevitable. His was too intense a nature to be otherwise 
than a power in anything. Whatever else he may have inher- 
ited from the "Ingialld" of the old Norwegian dynasty, or 
from "Baron Ingald" of the "Doomsday Book," the power of 
Thor was his inheritance. It was his by blood, if not in 
inclination, and men felt his presence and feared it, too — the 
certain marks of superior mentality. 

In 1859 he was made a delegate to the Wyandotte Con- 
stitutional Convention that met to frame a State Constitu- 



38 John James Ingalls. 

tion, and he impressed himself upon the fundamental law 
of the State in the phraseology in which it is couched. 

The next year he was secretary of the Territorial Coun- 
cil, and the next, of thf State Senate. In 1862 he served as 
State senator for his district. This official record served 
to show his growing power in public affairs. 

The Civil War found Ingalls serving in the capacity of 
iudge -advocate for the Kansas V^olunteers, with the rank 
of major. At the same time he was laying the foundation 
for his reputation as a writer. During the absence of Colonel 
John A. Martin, who was serving in the war, Mr. Ingalls was 
the editor of the Atchison Champion. The literary instinct 
ever strong in him found outlet for activity. 

After onlv seven years' residence in the State, John James 
Ingalls had come to be recognized as a force to be reckoned 
with in all public affairs. 

The great source of his power lay in his tine command 
of words. But words are only the signs of ideas. He who 
can marshal them adroitly must have a control of ideas, also 
a power to think. There are many men who have this latter 
power, but thev miss greatness because of a lack of ability 
to give expression to it. The double gift in large measure 
was the possession of this New England nobleman trans- 
planted in the commonwealth of Kansas. 



CHAPTER IV. 

In the published accounts of great men, it sometimes 
happens that their family relationships are least considered. 
When John James Ingalls died in August of 1900, the press 
of the country gave double-column space to his picture, 
column after column to his life and attainments, but only brief 
mention was made of his home life and family ties. This was 
well enough, for the casual reader cares little for anyone but 
the man himself; and the indifferent public often judges him- 
from his overt acts, and rarely from his motives and influences. 
And yet it is generally true that the better part of one's life is 
omitted when the home influences and associations are passed 
over in silence. In the case of Mr. Ingalls this is certainly true ; 
to this fact those who knew him most intimately bear willing 
testimony. 

In 1859 Anna Louisa Chesebrough came with her father's 
family from New York city to Atchison. Hers was a well- 
reputed people, whose early ancestors were the associates of 
John Winthrop in the settlement of Boston, in 1630. Her 
father, Ellsworth Chesebrough, was, for a number of years, an 
importer in New York city. At the time of his death in the 
year 1864, he was an elector from the vState of Kansas on the 
Lincoln ticket. 

When Mr. Ingalls had lived in Kansas for seven years, and 
was thirty-one years of age, he was married to Miss Chesebrough. 
The wedding took place on September 27, 1865. The wedded 
life then begun lasted through thirty-five years of unbroken 

39 



A^ John James Ingalls. 

•faith and love, and ended on that midsummer night in Las 
Vegas, when, for the tenderly affectionate husband, the light 
went out and the dawning of his new day was the sunrise of 
eternity. 

"One love, one home, one heaven above, 
One fold in heart and life; 
And the old love still will last us through 

To the journey's end, sweet wife. 
And reaching on, when this life is done. 

It will live and thrive and grow 
With a deathless flame, and a deeper name 
Than our mortal loves can know." 

Mr. Ingalls' home life is one that for the glory of Kansas her 
future senators would do well to emulate. His wife was his 
most trusted friend, his admirer, his inspiration. In her he 
centered the love of his life, and he found by his own fireside 
the haven of peace his soul most longed for. It was for him 
Ihe 

"Golden milestone; 
Was the central point from which he measured every distance 
Through the gateways of the world around him." 

Mrs. Ingalls was essentially a home-maker, as her husband 
was a home-lover. vShe was the mother of eleven children, six 
of whom are still living, and seven of whom grew to manhood 
and womanhood. When her fifth anniversary came, there were 
four babies in the house. When the tenth came, there were six 
living children, and one little grave in the cemetery. Think of 
it, you mother of one troublesome child; you wife who feels 
that maternity is a burden ! Six babies under ten years of age ! 
To the happy Ingalls family fatherhood and motherhood were 
coronals of honor. Their children were the inspiration of their 
lives, not the trial and burden of existence. 

It was in these early 3^ears of home-making that Mr. Ingalls 
did some of his best literary work. Four months before his 



Memoir. 41 

death, when he was health-seeking in Arizona, there fell into 
his hands a circular containing an extract from the Quarterly 
Report of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture for March, 
1900. This circular contained a long quotation from "Blue 
Grass," one of the early magazine articles that helped to make 
him famous. On the back of the circular Mr. Ingalls wrote : 

" Dearest Wife: 

" ' Blue Grass ' seems to be one of those compositions that the world will 
not willingly let die. 

"Those were happy days when it was written: in the little cottage 
on the bluff looking out over the great river; with a roomful of babies; 
obscure and unknown; waiting for destiny, so soon to come. * * * 
How far away it seems! 

"Your loving Husband." 

Socialty, Mrs. Ingalls w^as by birth and breeding a fit com- 
panion for her illustrious husband. In his work entitled "So- 
ciety in Washington, Its Great Men, Accomplished Women," 
etc., Mr. Randolph Keim says of the wife of the noted Senator 
from Kansas: 

' ' Mrs. Ingalls, the wife of the eloquent senator from the battle-ground 
of the slavery contests, is one of the interesting ladies of the senatorial cir- 
cle. * * * Amid the cares of family, she has adorned the senator's 
social hfe at Washington with the same distinguished success which has 
attended his wonderful career as one of the striking figiu-es in the upper 
branch of Congress." 

But aside from the home-keeping and social traits, Mrs. 
Ingalls was her husband's true companion and helpmeet in all 
his public service and literary effort. To her he paid the high 
compliment of valuing her friendship with her love. She was 
for him counsel and ambition. For her sake^he became an 
orator and a statesman. Through her inspiration he was 
moved to eloquence. Through her wisdom he^was discerning, 
and in her love he found peace. 



42 John James Ingalls. 

"How full of mournful tragedies, of incompleteness, of fragmentary 
ambitions and successes this existence is!" So writes Mr. Ingalls on 
the sudden death of Senator Sumner. "And yet how sweet and dear it 
is made by love! That alone never fails to satisfy and fill the soul. 
Wealth satiates, and ambition ceases to allure ; we weary of eating and 
drinking, of going up and down the earth — of looking at its mountains and 
seas, at the sky that arches it, at the moon and stars that shine upon it, but 
never of the soul that we love and that loves us, of the face that watches 
for us and grows brighter when we come. * * * Good-night." 

It is perhaps granted to few women to know a married 

life of such unbroken trust, to have such sincere admiration, to 

feel one's self to be of so mtich tise and comfort to her husband 

as it was Mrs. Ingalls' lot to know. 

Next to his love for his wife was Mr. Ingalls' affection for 

his children. His grief for the little ones taken away in early 

childhood was intense. 

"My bereavement," he writes to his sister after the death of little Ruth, 
aged seven, "seems to me like a cruel dream from which I shall soon awaken. 
The light has gone out of my life. Ruth was my favorite child. Her tem- 
perament was tranquil and consoling; she gratified my love of the beauti- 
ful, my desire for repose. I loved her most because she was so much like 
her dear mother." And he adds at the close: "I am assured we shall 
meet again." 

So, too, of his little boy Addison, who died in October, 1876, 

aged four, he writes to his father: 

"He was the noblest and most {promising of my sons, as Ruth was 
the most lovely and engaging of my daughters. 

"Yesterday, beneath the clear sky that brooded above us like a cove- 
nant of peace, we laid him to sleep beside his sister, to wait the solution of 
the great mystery of existence when earth and sea shall give up their dead. 

* * * * If eternity will release its treasures, sometime I shall 
claim my own." 

Of the children who grew to manhood and womanhood, his 
daughter Constance seems to have been most beloved, although 
they were all very dear to their father. In a letter to his wife, 
written in February, 1875, he says: 



Memoir. 43 

"Your praises of Baby Constance find a constant echo in my heart. 
Since Ruth went away, I think Constance seems a little nearer and dearer 
to me than any of the rest of the sweet brood. * * * 

"I would like to gather you all around the hbrary fire this bitter night 
and talk over the affairs of the day." 

Constance died just eight months before her father. Her 
death was a crushing blow from which he never ralHed. 

It would be cruel, however, to the memory of John James 
Ingalls to dwell on these sad phases of family life only, and to 
omit all mention of his intense pleasure in his home, his pride 
in his children, his keen sense of humor, that to his political ene- 
mies took the form of bitterest sarcasm, but to his loved ones 
and intimate friends was only delightful mirth. His love of 
beauty, too, was an apparent trait in his daily life. Somewhere 
in every letter and in every speech it shone forth, not by con- 
scious effort, but because it was the inherent part of a brilliant, 
beauty-loving mind. 

On Thanksgiving Day, 1891, he wrote to Constance: 

"It is a most entrancing morning. I have just come in from a stroll 
in the sunshine to and fro along the stone walk to the north gate. The 
sky is cloudless, and the wind just strong enough to turn the mill slowly in 
the soft air. The smoke from the chinmeys rises straight to the zenith and 
dissolves in the stainless blue. In the deep, distant valley the river glim- 
mers through a dim silver mist woven with shifting purple Hke the hues 
which gleam on the breast of a dove. Undulating along the horizon, the 
bluft's rise Uke translucent crags of violet, and from the city beneath col- 
umns of vapor and fumes from engines and factories ascend, accompanied 
by a confused and inarticulate murmur, hke the whispers of protest and 
pain. * * * During the night it rained, and the grass of the lawn is 
green. It glitters and scintillates with the transitory gems of the frost. 
Here and there are disappearing ridges of the snow from the storm of 
Monday, and in the hollows of the grove the bronze leaves of the oaks are 
piled high, to be dispersed by the next gale, like the ruined gold of a 
spendthrift, or the vanishing hopes of men." 

It is with something akin to loving reverence that the 
stranger must look into the home life of this man. To the pub- 



44 John James Ingalls. 

lie he was austere; to his enemies, he was caustic — "as vine- 
gar to the teeth" ; to the student of humanity, he was an enigma ; 
but in the home in which he was husband and father, he was 
the idol — the genial, loving, refined, thoughtful man, compan- 
ionable, delightful. To have known him here, to have compre- 
hended him in this phase of life where his virtues showed 
serenest, is to appreciate the rare possession of the memory 

that holds 

"The touch of a vanished hand, 
And the sound of a voice that is still " 



CHAPTER V. 

Senator Ingalls was not universally popular. Men believed 
him cold; but they admired him, gloried in him, took intense 
satisfaction in the word-battles wherein he was victor, felt a 
proud sense of proprietorship in him when he brought fame 
and honor to his State, cared not to question whether Ingalls 
meant Kansas or Kansas meant Ingalls when he engrossed the 
attention of the Nation. He "never wore his heart on his sleeve 
for daws to peck at," and the populace never felt sure but that 
somehow in his impenetrability he could dispense with it alto- 
gether. Such a man could not, in the very nature of things' 
float always with the tide, nor fall in readily with mediocrity, 
nor adapt himself easily to the endless contradictions ever man- 
ifest in human nature as seen in popular outcry and the froth 
of public sentiment. It was imperative that Ingalls should 
be Ingalls — that he should be himself and true to himself. 
Whether the public understands or misapprehends a man is 
never the question of great import; the vital thing is that he 
shall understand himself and have the courage to plant himself 
on the rock of truth. 

But, leaving public affairs to their own tortuous turnings, 
we seek a location where he was known, loved, honored, under- 
stood, appreciated. Even his relations with his parents and 
brothers and sisters were, in their own proper degree, as delight- 
ful as those which charmed and brightened his own home. 
Especially was his respectful and confidential attitude towards 
his father an admirable trait. "Honor thy father" was accep- 

45 



46 John James Ingalls. 

ted by him as being the sum of human wisdom in this relation, 

and he acted upon it from conviction and inclination. No 

perfunctory performance here. There was something in his 

nature and mentality a woman could discern and understand 

and confide in. This trait manifested itself in him at an earlv 

age and made him seek the silent society and companionship 

of his mother in his moods. This strong but indescribable 

characteristic had its appreciation in those friends who saw 

beyond the surface the true and inner man. At the time of 

his death, one of the leading daily papers of the West said 

editorially : 

" Mr. Ingalls was in tempernment and habit gentle and kind. Whether 
he was conversing with a solemn thinker, a woman, or a ten-year old boy. 
he always adapted himself to circumstances." 

It was not granted to many people to know Senator Ingalls 
intimately ; but to those in possession of this prized privilege, 
the passing out of his life made a void never to be filled. For 
forty years his home was in Atchison. When one of his fellow- 
townsmen heard of his death, he said : 

" The death of Mr. Ingalls is a great loss to the State; it is a great loss 
to the nation; but it is a greater loss than all to the town of Atchison. By 
his death the light in the windows of Atchison has gone out." 

Senator Ingalls never sought friendships, and, inasmuch as 

few people knew him as he was in very fact, he was generally 

misunderstood. Of the many newspaper estimates, we give 

three quotations from the Topeka Daily Capital, as just and 

fair : 

"Who can say, in truth and honesty, that he really knew — compre- 
hended, understood — Ingalls? He gave so sparingly of his intimacies 
that small opportunity was afforded those who were so minded to gain 
an insight into his character; to Kansans generally he was an enigma. I 
refer to the man; not the orator, the politician, the student of history, lit- 
erattu-e, and the elegant arts; not the legislator, the advocate, or the poet, 
but the personality." 



Memoir. 47 

"I believe there is but one person in all the world who knew the real 
man, and that person is his widow; and he was surely remarkable, even 
great, for he was ever a hero t6 her 

"A man may misunderstand himself, but his wife understands him; 
he may deceive himself, but he cannot practice deception upon his wife ; 
he can hide himself from the world, but it is his wife who finds him out; 
he may be all things to all men, but his wife sees him as he is; and the 
man who is great in the eyes of his wife is truly great." 

"Kansas was not just to Ingalls when he was ahve; let her see to it 
that this is not followed by cold neglect of his memory. He was an honor 
to Kansas, and Kansas should do honor to his name ; he shared his well- 
won laurels with her, and she accepted them gladly enough ; she basked in 
the sunhght of his success and partook of the fruits of his victories; she 
was first in his thoughts in his hours of triumph, and the beneficiary in a 
hundred ways of his generosity. What he had to give her, he gave with- 
out stint or condition, for he loved Kansas; she was the object of his young 
manhood's virgin affection." 

"It was really in his home life," testifies his son Shef- 
field, "that the noble qualities of his heart and mind were 
shown. He was devoted, kind, patient, and indulgent." After 
all, what testimony could be stronger? Few friendships, and 
those few sincere, to a man of an intense, concentrated mind 
and retiring, reflective disposition, more than compensate for 
the babbling crowd and the "hail-fellow-well-met" shallow- 
ness gained in comminghng with the unthoughtful. 



CHAPTER VI. 

"And there he stands in memory to this day, erect, self-poised, 
A witness to the ages as they pass, 
That simple duty hath no place for fear." 

— Whittier. 

In the sum of national history John James Ingalls is a unit. 
A pronounced personality he was, who impressed himself upon 
his time in his own individual way; and his imprint upon 
state and national affairs is fadeless. To rank him with the 
colossal figures in public life would be unfair. To put him 
among the commonplace would be unjust. He could not be 

commonplace. No one who ever knew him even slightly would 
accuse him of mediocrity. 

Mr. Ingalls was essentially a public man, a man of large 
affairs, because he was a representative man. He stood for 
Kansas, for the whole State, because he was a scholarly thinker 
and an orator. He may not have represented specifically and 
distinctly the man who likes social fellowship, nor the mild- 
tempered, peace-loving citizen, nor the dull, unthinking plod- 
der, nor the intense partisan of an opposite political faith; but 
he stood for the thought of the whole. In this capacity he was 
peerless. 

For twenty-five years he was before the footlights of pub- 
lic life, and for the whole decade after his retirement he was 
scarcely less conspicuous than when he was actively engaged 
in public affairs. Not long before Mr. Ingalls' death, a bril- 
liant young Kansan, casting about for the calling in which he 
could be most useful, was asked, "What subject interests you 



Memoir. 49 

most? When you pick up a newspaper or magazine, to what 
theme do you instinctively turn ? ' ' His reply was : "I always 
look for something from John J. Ingalls' pen. If I find any- 
thing of his writing, I read it first." This young man was 
onlv a typical Kansan in this instance. It was "the power of 
Thor" (the original significance of the old "Ingiald" name), 
asserting itself still. How could such a nature be other than 
dominant? or, as we term it in a republic, representative? 

Kansas is a peculiar commonwealth, and even when her 
fifes and drums are still and her swords are in their scabbards, 
the gates of the temple of Janus stand open, and a warfare 
of factions, a bloodless contention, keeps her records full of 
interest. 

That was a tragic chapter in the peaceful annals of the 
State which records Mr. Ingalls' first senatorial accession. It 
was one of those strange stampedes of Fate, unforeseen and 
unconquerable. 

Eighteen years later another stampede, unfortunate for 
Kansas and the Nation, made fortune change front for Mr. 
Ingalls. 

For nearly two decades Mr. Ingalls was one of the most 
illustrious figures in W'ashington. During this time he served 
the Senate in its most responsible requirements. He was 
chairman of the Committee on Pensions, of the District of 
Columbia, and of the special Committee on Bankrupt Law; he 
was a member of the Judiciar}-, of Indian Affairs, '^of Education 
and Labor, of Privileges and Elections, and of many other 
special committees. 

He was a frequent debater, and made many elaborate 
speeches. But to recount his public life in these words gives 
no idea of the Senator from Kansas in the davs when all Wash- 



50 John James Ingalls. 

ington hastened to the great Capitol on announcement that 
Ingalls was to speak. He was a force that once felt was never 
to be forgotten. It was said of him: 

■'He knew language as the devout Moslem knew his Koran. All the 
deeps and shallows of the sea of words have been sounded and surveyed 
by him and duly marked upon the chart of his great mentahty. In the 
presence of an audience he was a magician like those of Egypt; under the 
power of his magic, syllables became scorpions — an inflection became an 
indictment; and with words he builded temples of thought that excited at 
first the wonder and at all times the admiration of the world of literature 
and statesmanship. He was emperor in the realm of expression. The Eng- 
lish-speaking people will listen long before again they hear the harmony 
born of that perfect fitting of phrase to thought that marked the utter- 
ances of John J. Ingalls." 

As President of the Senate, he was superb. His graceful 
bearing, his dignity of manner, his alert apprehension, his 
quick wit, his parliamentary diplomacy, all combined to make 
him master of the situation. Above all these qualities was 
confidence in himself. When others were excited, he was 
cool; when others were uncertain, he was firm. His very calm- 
ness gave him strength. \"'ery rarely has that great and re- 
sponsible office been filled by a man of the superior ability, 
ripe experience, and perfect self-possession possessed by Mr. 
Ingalls. 

Something of the old Viking spirit reappears to-day under 
modified social conditions, and enters into the mental make-up 
of certain characters as a mark of strong personality. Had 
Ingalls lived in the days of Norse supremacy, what a terrible 
force he would have been ! But coming down to a life run- 
ning parallel with the last two-thirds of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, he was a Viking in the realm of words ; his weapons could 
strike deep, and his wounds were next to mortal. 

Illustrative of his quick wit, oratorical power, and telling 



Memoir. 51 

sarcasm, the following story of the bout between Senator Salis- 
bury, of Delaware, and Senator Ingalls will serve as an example: 

Salisbury had invested in some Kansas bonds that were 
repudiated, and he naturally did not think well of the State. 
He arose one day, and took half an hour to express his opinion 
of Kansas. When he had finished, he denounced the people, 
the climate, the coal, and about everything else in the vState. 
Senator Ingalls uncoiled himself from his chair, and arose. In 
mock humility, he commented on the rebuke Kansas had 
received. Then he began a panegyric that held the galleries 
entranced. It was one of the most eloquent speeches ever 
made by Ingalls. He went back to the days of the ^Missouri 
Compromise, and reviewed the history of Kansas, dwelt on the 
soldiers the State furnished for the Civil War, and swept down 
to the date on which he was talking. Then he stopped a 
moment, looked at Salisbury, and said. "And, Mr. President, 
this is the State that has been assailed in this chamber by a 
man who represents in part — in part, ;\Ir. President — a State 
which has two counties when the tide is up and three when 
the tide is down." Salisbury had nothing more to say. 

It has been said of Ingalls that he was "a vivisectionist 
with intense loves and hates," and the estimate is certainly 
true. 

Now for the second stampede of Fate. The most noted 
senator Kansas ever had came to his own by accident, as it 
were. Politics has epochs. We observe the rise and fall of 
conditions, or systems, or regimes, in the progress of public 
affairs. One such period is limited by the term of John James 
Ingalls' official life. The dov.^nfall of Pomeroy, or, rather, of all 
that Pomeroy stood for, marked the elevation of Ingalls as rep- 
resentative of Kansas Republicanism in party affairs. This 



52 John James Ingalls. 

Republicanism was a dominant force for nearly two decades. 
It ruled the State during her years of agricultural and commer- 
cial development ; it attended to the upbuilding of her schools, 
to the establishment of her temperance laws, and her strong 
moral statutes protecting the property rights and advancing 
the civil rights of women. It held the public offices when the 
plague of grasshoppers came down from the Rocky Mountains 
and ravished up the fullness of the land. It dominated affairs 
while the frontier pushed slowly westward; while dugout 
homes and stock-corrals gave place to comfortable farm-houses 
and capacious barns and granaries. It was in power when the 
plague of the boom came in from the East and built imaginary 
towns of impossible values; and its last days saw the collapse 
of inflation and the confusion of financial tongues — forerun- 
ners of depression and money panic. It reached its culmi- 
nating point when Kansas cast 180,000 ballots for James G. 
Blaine in 1884. Think of 180,000 Republican voters in a vStatc 
that thirtv-five vears before had less than 1,000 inhabitants! 
There's magic in it. Xo wonder vSenator Salisbury from Del- 
aware had little cause to ridicule Kansas. In this year the 
Ingalls regime, the power of which he was the exponent, touched 
the zenith. After that comes the recessional. 

It is probably not in place here to enter into an analysis of 
the rise of Populism, although the temptation to do so in just- 
ice to the memory of John James Ingalls is almost irresistible. 
Some day when the searchlight of history is turned on Kansas 
annals, when narrow partisanship and personalities are laid 
aside, the tide of e\ents and the reason why individual doom 
should lie in their untamable current will be better understood. 

Sufficient is it to say, that with the overthrow of the old 
Republicanism in Kansas. Ingalls, the last heroic figure of its 



Memoir. 



03 



imperial days, went down to defeat. His political overthrow, 
like the physical taking-off of William McKinley, was not for 
anything in the man himself, but because of what he stood for. 
Populism was in power. He was in its way. 

Perhaps no one interested in all the nation felt the effect of 
his defeat less keenly than Senator Ingalls himself. A self- 
sufficiency, the result of having remained always true to him- 
self, and never impaired by indiscriminate friendships and idle^ 
association, was his stay. A power that he alone knows who- 
lives sometimes near to Nature's heart, who sees the beauty 
of the skv and landscape, who contemplates the broad river 
and the far-off horizon line, who makes fellowship with words, 
as the signs of ideas, and who looks within himself for his com- 
fort and pleasure, a power never defeated by the ballot-box,, 
made life altogether restful to John James Ingalls. while his. 
friends wrung their hands in disgust and bitter disappointment^ 
and his enemies rejoiced in an altogether vain joy. 

Half the mental misery of life comes from a lack of self- 
adjustment. Ingalls was master of himself. 

A man, to be thoroughly useful, must have enemies. They 
keep his nature in better poise. He may not overcome them 
in life, but in the perspective of time the man and his enemies, 
both fade out, and what he did stands imperishable. In the 
case of the gentleman from Kansas there are certain definite 
effects upon national life apparent to the thoughtful mind. 
Each effect stands out as a power in itself. All that Ingalls 
ever did was positive. He was worth loving or hating, admir- 
ing or fearing. He was not a man toward whom one could be 
indift'erent. 

Ingalls taught to his generation the virtue of fearlessness. 
In all the future of American politics the quality of courage 



54 John James Ingai^ls. 

will be more esteemed because of one man's unconquerable will. 
We sav that every martyr to religion, every martyr to patriot- 
ism, every martyr to scientific discovery, uplifts the soul of 
mankind, and henceforth its plane is nearer to the stars. If 
this be true, then every man who dares take issue with public 
opinion, who questions not whether he shall make himself 
popular or unpopular, who bears a reputation for fearlessness 
until such reputation comes to be a badge of honor, does by 
one degree or by many degrees lift mankind above mental 
cowardice and give to it for all future years more courage and 
tolerance. Such a gift was the heritage of John James Ingalls 
to the young men of Kansas who come into the light of public 
affairs. 

Close to this quality of fearlessness is the virtue of origi- 
nality. The man of whom this writing is a memoir carried 
an influence before the public. He was admired or feared; 
never insulted with indifference. The secret of the interest in 
him lav in his originality. He worked out his problem fear- 
lesslv, and in his own way. And the college which withheld 
his diploma until compelled to issue it felt proud to grant him 
a doctor's degree, and to call him to fill the place of honor on 
her program in her festal days. Nobody could forecast Ingalls. 
Nobodv could surmise just how he would compass his victories, 
iust how he would meet his defeats. Nobody could have 
prophesied how he could, with his pen or tongue, lay bare the 
deep-hidden wound of his enemy, nor that his dying words 
would have been the prayer of his childhood, beginning with 
the expression, "Our Father, which art in heaven." 

He lived in his own fashion. He thought and acted in his 
own way. He was himself, not a borrowed, assumed person- 
ality. By this phase of his character he has made life a little 



Memoir. 55 

easier for all statesmen. He left to the Senate an example it 
may do well to emulate. He impressed himself upon the 
Nation, and time will not efface the pattern of his making. 

One more contribution, the most influential of all, was the 
dignity and force he gave to the use of language. Indeed it is 
possible that future generations will remember Senator Ingalls 
for this thing alone. His fine sense of the beautiful put rhythm 
and music into his speech. The standard of oratory in the 
United States Senate to-day is, consciously or unconsciously, 
the Ingalls standard. What of it? We call him great who 
can put life into the block of gleaming alabaster. We honor 
his skill, as that of a benefactor, who can so blend colors on can- 
vas that they grow into an exquisite reproduction of Nature. 
We are enraptured with his power who can steal from the twit- 
ter of birds, the babbling of brooks, the mournful murmur of 
the pines, and the loud resonance of the thunder-cloud the har- 
mony of sounds that makes the symphony of music. We call 
his genius sublime who can construct the great cathedral, with 
its grooved arches and mighty domes, its symmetry and beauty, 
from tessellated floor or fretted roof. But these things are 
commonplace when compared to the plastic force, the exquisite 
fineness of language. This fineness and this force was the 
bequest of John James Ingalls to his people. 

The quality of fearlessness, or originality, and of a sense of 
the beautiful expressed in words, are the inheritance of the 
Nation from Ingalls. These great mental traits help to shape 
the thought and action of to-day, and through them Ingalls 
lives yet in the halls of Congress — the peerless Senator from 
Kansas. 



CHAPTER VII. 

After his retirement from the Senate, a busy literary career 
opened for ^Ir. Ingalls. Newspaper syndicates and publish- 
ers of magazines offered him the highest market sums for articles 
from his pen. Lecture bureaus and Chautauqua Assembly 
managers eagerly sought to add his name to their list of 
attractions. 

"I am not going lecturing: at least not for a vacation," he writes to 
Constance on June 6,1891. "I have consented, as the shop-girls say when 
they are fired out of one situation and find another after much importu- 
nity, to accept a few invitations to deliver addresses at summer Chau- 
tauqua assemblies, as Plato and Socrates used to do at Athens and else- 
where: one near Washington; one, July 4th, in Nebraska; one, July 
1 6th, in Iowa; one July 30th, at Madison, Wisconsin; one at Staten Island, 
near New York; and, possibly, one at Atlanta, Georgia, early in August, 
after which I shall sit under my own vine and fig-tree for awhile and 
commune with Nature." 

This serves to show what demand there was for his literary 
talent, and is an example of what followed for eight years, 
until his health failed. 

After the senatorial election of 1891, he gave up all thought 
of public office. For his party he had hoped to be returned to 
the Senate, but for himself he was glad of the opportunity to 
cast away forever the cares of public life. They had come to 
be a grievous burden ; indeed, they were ever irksome to him. 
Never after his defeat was he an aspirant for any office w^hat- 
ever, and there was not one he could have been induced to 
accept. His desire to enjoy the peace and pleasures of home 
and the imbroken companionship of his loving and devoted 

56 



Memoir. 57 

family, had long been an aspiration which seemed likely neyer 
to be realized. While the Nation stood disappointed at his 
defeat, he returned to his home and the joys it held for him, 
rejoicing that he was nevermore to be vexed by the cares of 
office and the importunities of politicians. 

Once, in the prime of his vigor, he wrote to his wife: 

" Life to me is so vivid, so intense, like an eager flame, that pain, 
disease, weakness, annihilation seem monstrous and intolerable." 

Early in June of 1900 he wrote to his daughter Marion, from 
Las Vegas, New Mexico : 

" I was sorry not to go home last Sunday with Sheffield; but we held 
a council of war, and decided that 1 had better try the air and altitude 
treatment here for awhile. I am desperately tired and discouraged and 
homesick. Affectionately, Your Pap.\." 

Forty days later the weariness ended; the disouragement 
gave place to peace; the homesickness slipped away and left 
him at rest. With Faith and Louisa, whom he had lost in 
their infancy; with Addison and Ruth, who had passed away in 
the innocency of childhood; and with the beloved, womanly 
daughter, Constance, whose death broke his heart, he too 
had gone to begin the new home-making in the larger life 
beyond life. 

But the ruling passion was strong in death. Considera- 
tion for those about him marked his last hours. The day 
before he died he insisted that Mrs. Ingalls attend a wedding 
ceremony in which some friends at the hotel plighted their 
faith to the end of life. He had himself expected to attend. 
His one remaining hope and ambition was to reach home, 
to die there and in Kansas. His wife was his stay, his com- 
fort, his sustaining power, in whom alone he found sweet 
peace in this world. vShe had stood in the breach fighting 



58 John James Ingalls. 

death and shielding her beloved day by day and night after 
night. But death is inexorable, and all the ways of the 
world, broad though they seem, converge and lead finally 
to a narrow passage where there is room for but one to pass. 
Death stands just beyond this fateful portal. He is visible 
in all his hideous terrors, but the world crowds behind ; there 
is no turning back. She to whom he believed himself joined 
for eternity walked with him to the very gate and would 
gladly have gone on to save him, but it could not be. An 
affectionate farewell, and he became a watcher and waiter 
for her who held his life in the journey through this world 
of tribulation and sorrow. Death came to him between 
midnight and day-dawn, in the late summer season of the 
year, and just before he had reached old age — August 16, 1900. 

In the quiet gloom of the early summer morning hours, 
like a tired child at his mother's knees, he said over the sweet 
and simple prayer by which the loving Elder Brother of all 
mankind has taught us to come into the presence of the 
Father, and with an ineffable peace written on his face, he 
fell asleep. 

Two days later his body was laid to rest in the cemetery 
at Atchison. 

"' Life's fitful fever ' for him was ended, and the foolish wrangle of 
the market and forum was closed ; grass healed over the scar which his 
descent into the bosom of the earth had made, and the carpet of the infant 
became the blanket of the dead." 

There was mourning in the State of Kansas when the wires 
quivered with the message of the end of Ingalls. Then by 
the glow of history and reminiscence it began to dawn upon 
the mind of the commonwealth that a great light had gone 
out; that he who in the dark days of the State's adversity 



Memoir. ^g 

had maintained her glory and power before the Nation had 
himself crossed the harbor bar, and never, never may we look 
upon his like again. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

"My library \vas dukedom large enough." 

The student of human nature would wish for a clever pen 
when he writes of this ablest son of Kansas, and the lover 
of literature finds a delightful task in the consideration of the 
most illustrious phases of his character. The print-shop of 
public opinion sets up his name only in large capitals when 
the mentality of the man is put into type for history. 
"He was an emperor in the realm of expression." 

Beyond the senator of whom we have written, is the writer; 
and above and beyond that is the man himself. 

Ingalls had three text-books: nature, humanity, and the 
dictionarv. The first two gave him material and the third 
furnished him with implement or weapon according as his 
work was pacific or belligerent. 

Ingalls was essentially an orator and a rhetorician. His 
whole inclination was toward a literary life. Was he there- 
fore a misfit in politics? There are not lacking those who 
mourn that he did not devote himself to literature. It is 
easy enough to declare that a man has been a success or a 
failure in any field, but to assert that he would have been 
successful somewhere else is an assurance born of folly. There 
is not an over-production of literary ability to day; whoever 
possesses it in a marked degree is assured of gracious hear- 
ing and an influence, especially in the halls of Congress. 

Ingalls was formidable. His power of invective was 

something tremendous. Before his fierce words an enemy 

60 



Memoir. 6i 

could do nothing but writhe. Nobody who knew him ever 
walked carelessly or insolently on his preserves without re- 
gretting it. Of all degrees from mild ridicule to utter anni- 
hilation he was a cunning master. And with his keenness 
and originality one could never fore-judge where or how he 
would launch his weapon. 

Ingalls' mind was of the critical type. His ideal of per- 
fection was high. His sense of irregularity and of incon- 
gruitv was keen. He was a born critic. No man who has 
a nice discriminating power can be otherwise than critical. 
It is said of Ingalls that he had no tolerance for a fool, no 
patience with mediocrity. We resent the authority of the 
man who sets himself in judgment over us. Yet if his judg- 
ment be accurate, ours may be the profit, nevertheless. It 
is not impossible that the man from Kansas did more with his 
criticism than the optimist could do in smoothing whitewash 
over sepulchres of corruption. Another quality of this noted 
mind was insight. No one can be critical without insight, 
which is not so much the ability to discern men's motives as 
the appreciation of their mental methods and status. He 
was shrewd in knowing people. The text-book of humanity 
he read on sight. Ingalls was a Cassius w^ho thought much, 
was a great observer, and looked quite through the deeds 
of men. It was in the nature of things, too, that with this 
critical mind he should be satirical, and that his sense of humor 
should have an almost abnormal development. From ridi- 
cule that seared like white-hot iron, through all grades of sar- 
casm and satire, down to the most delightful mirth, his hand 
played all the keys. Some hint of a sense of the ludicrous 
cropped out perpetually. In his letters to his children, how- 
ever brief, a smile crept in between the lines. 



62 John James Ingalls. 

Ingalls had an innate dignity of bearing, and rlignity of 
thought. In all his mental output, whether invective, or 
of humor, or pathos, whether instructive discourse or dav- 
dream fancies, there was nothing of the coarse nor of the 
undignified commonplace. 

Ingalls' style of composition was marked by picturesque- 
ness, originality, and magnificence. It had in it a blending 
of Bacon and Addison, of Carlyle and Swift, of Shakespeare 
and Tennyson. Yet it was, above everything else, Ingalls' 
own creation. He lived so much in the realm of words that 
he came to the mastery o\'er them. They served him gladlv, 
for he grasped their uses and their potency. His pen was 
the stylus of the cameo artist, the chisel of the sculptor, the 
sabre of the warrior, the arrow of the gods. 

In the text-book of Nature, John James Ingalls read the 
story of the universe. 

He loved to take long solitary rides on horseback, or to 

ramble alone in the woods. He delighted to sit hour after 

hour and watch the shifting light and shadow on the great 

river that stretched away below his home and lost itself in 

the distant tangle of the landscape. The rolling prairie, the 

wooded ravines, the soft hazy skies of Kansas were to him 

an inspiration. In them he found an uplifting sense of peace. 

They gave to him, as their faithful lover, the benediction of 

the universe and the hidden tale of that drama 

"That is still unread 
In the manuscript of God." 

Ingalls reveled in the beautiful. So intense was his fine 
appreciation that it was next to pain. The dull, unthinking 
crowd never dream of the struggle in the mind of the artist 
who undertakes to realize in clay or color, in music or in 



Memoir. 63 

language, the fine ideal of beauty that the brain has created. 
When a man sees his own intense, exclusive thought stand 
out in words, when listening throngs wait for their utterance, 
when the resonance of their tones, the ripple of their music, 
the beauty of their figures, and the force of their truths cling 
like argument to the soul that takes hold of them — that man 
has the power of human mastery. 

And here was the realm wherein John James Ingalls found 
himself — his best self. Whether or not it was the only work 
meant for him, God knows, and the adjustment of results 
is with Him. 

Ingalls had a prolific mind. He had the gift of poetry 
in moderate degree. Sometimes the measures that fell from 
his lips were pearls, and sometimes toads and scorpions 
depending altogether on the purpose whereunto he sent them. 

His magazine articles, his fragmentary bits of beauty in 
one or another form of the country's press, his splendid ora- 
tory, covering such a wide field of thought, all tend to reveal 
the compass of a mind that knew and knew how it knew. 
His sayings are household words. His figures are standards 
for all future rhetoric. His conception of beauty is a divine 
beneficent gift to the English-speaking people. 

And now as to the man himself. Kansans do not pro- 
fess to know him, but they never doubt that he knew himself. 
In this distance from the day of his activity certain traits 
are revealed. 

He had the thrift of a born New Englander. With all of 
what might seem a drain on his resources, he lived in mod- 
erate luxury all his days, and left a competency to his family 
by bequest. 



64 John James Ingalls. 

He had to a degree a fraternal spirit. He belonged to 
the Grand Army of the Republic, the Loyal Legion, and the 
Masonic Order. Fraternal organizations have, like other so- 
cial institutions, come to be somewhat of business proposi- 
tions, social ladders, and political and personal foundations 
to power. They may be a convenience, a benefit, or a mere 
source of pleasure to their members. What Mr. Ingalls' mo- 
tive was in belonging can only be guessed at. 

Ingalls was called cold, unsympathetic, unfeeling. Yet he 
was to the inner circle none of these. Is it not clear that 
the man who is reading Nature and humanity, and who from 
dav to day becomes a more habitual student, cannot pour 
out his soul like water? He never failed those who needed 
him. Within the sphere of his legitimate love he moved a 
genial, tender, thoughtful spirit. 

His intimate friends and associates were always of the 
aristocracy of brain and merit. With these he felt himself 
at home. No man in Kansas ever lived among more refined 
associations. 

He was a critic, and he hated fraud with an uncompro- 
mising hatred. Some of his bitterest attacks were made 
on shams and insincerity. He was unsympathetic here, un- 
sparing, irresistible. Perhaps this is why the public thought 
him cold and indifferent. 

His was an intensely sensitive nature. He must have suf- 
fered deeply when pain and grief came to him. As deep, too, 
was his joy in the sunshine of existence. In January of 1883 
he wrote to his wife: 

"I have a little funeral oration to deliver this .\. m. on Ben Hill, and 
am in terror, as usual, although it lies written out on my desk " 



Mkmoir. 65 

But when the listening Senate heard that funeral oration, 
it never dreamed of terror in the gifted speaker. When the 
press of the Nation copied it far and wide, neither editor nor 
reader guessed of the terror in the sensitive spirit of the author. 
Only the loving wife at home knew that he had gained an- 
other victory, and the price with which it was bought. We 
do rarely > 

"Think when the strain is sung 
Till a thousand hearts are stirred, 
What life-drops from the minstrel wrung 
Have gushed with every word." 

John James Ingalls was not a Church-man, and not a 
creed-man. Must the world offer excuse for that? Must the 
Church and creed sit in judgment on him and condemn him 
to where the fire is not quenched and the worm does not 
die? An irreligious man, whose best friends were the noted 
ministers of the gospel! A doubter, who depended on truth 
for the power that made him strong! Fortunately, the think- 
ing mind has at last reached the resting-ground of belief, that 
each man's problem he alone can solve. The magnificent, 
vindictive Ingalls, who laughed at the foibles of the man- 
made Church, found the unseen in his own fashion, trusted 
and questioned for himself, and at last, when his life-drama 
ended, he could say in the faith: "Thine is the kingdom, and 
the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen." 

Where, after all, is the real man? Is it in him who has 
the gift "the applause of listening senates to command"? Is 
it in him whose business bent can put him on pleasant and 
profitable footing with the kings of commerce? Does it lie 
in the man who figures before the crowd? who is at home 
on the stump, in the prayer-meeting, at the club, on the 



66 John James Ingalls. 

street corner? A man may be any or all of these and pass 
for one of Nature's successes, and yet to those who know him 
best, who must meet him daily and hourly at his meals, in his 
dressing-room, in his study — morning, noon, and night, must 
see him — he may be a rasping, wearing curse, a contemptible 
snob, a selfish, heartless wretch. And that may be the real 
man. 

There was a Kansan once, the real man, whose fine mind 
was habitually studious, whose sensitive nature was tinged 
with sweetness, yet with a humor all-redeeming, whose won- 
derful ability to express himself "after the use of English 
in straight-flung words and few" puts him into classic lit- 
erature forever, who dwelt near to the great heart of Na- 
ture, and loved almost to worship her delicate sweetness and 
her superb magnificence; whose heart was kind and gentle; 
who lived in the lives of his home and made them radiant 
with sunshine; who was modest in prosperity, and patient 
in adversity; who studied God and His universe after the 
means the God of that universe had given to him; who grew 
weary one day, folded his tired hands, and was not, for God 
took him. 

Then the real man who was king of his own household 

was mourned for with a heart-breaking sorrow. Then and 

now for all the future, the commonwealth of Kansas bows 

reverently to his memory, and with pardonable pride her 

people designate him, 

JOHN JAMES INGALLS, 
WRITER, ORATOR, STATESMAN, 
THE IDEAL KANSAN. 

WlI^LIAM ElSEY CoNNELLEY. 



ALBERT DEAN RICHARDSON. 



The tragic death of Mr. Richardson two yeairs ago, famil- 
iarized the Nation with the chief incidents of his remark- 
able career: his humble birth in a farming town in Massa- 
chusetts in October, 1833; ^is early experiences as a journal- 
ist in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati; his brief residence in Kansas 
and Colorado; his eventful wanderings through the South- 
west as a correspondent of the Eastern press; his connection 
with the Tribune during the war; his restless joumeyings 
across the continent to regain health hopelessly shattered 
by exposure in rebel prisons; his final ventures in the field 
of literature; and that fatal passion, in obedience to whose 
most inexplicable but potential swav he resolutely went to 
his lamented grave. 

I delivered letters of introduction to him in October, 1858, 
at the city of Sumner, of which he was one of the founders, 
and where he was then living with his estimable wife and 
their attractive children. His residence was one of the con- 
ventional structures of the period : a cottonwood cabin of two 
rooms, with a door between two windows in the end, which 
was converted into a front by the strange architectural device 
of a flimsy square of weather-boards intended to conceal the 
gables. It was situated near the climax of the vertical "Ave- 
nue" that led, in fancy, from the imaginary levee, thronged 
with an ideal commerce, to the supposititious palaces of her 

67 



68 John James Ingalls. 

merchant princes, reaching in pictorial splendor far toward the 
western horizon. 

Those who remember the audacious "Views" of their 
fungous cities with which the Pilgrim Fathers of Kansas, 
in that epoch of scrupulous honesty, were accustomed to 
beguile the dazzled vision of the emigrating public, can readily 
appreciate the mingled doubt and consternation with which 
I gazed on that picture and then on this reality. That chro- 
matic triumph of lithographed mendacity, supplemented by 
the loquacious embellishments of a lively adventurer who 
has been laying out townsites and staking off corner lots for 
some years past in Tophet, exhibited a scene in which the 
attractions of art, Nature, science, commerce, and religion 
were artistically blended. Innumerable drays were trans- 
porting from a fleet of gorgeous steamboats, vast cargoes of 
foreign and domestic merchandise over Russ pavements to 
colossal warehouses of brick and stone. Dense wide streets 
of elegant residences rose with gentle ascent from the shores 
of the tranquil stream. Numerous parks, decorated with 
rare trees, shrubbery, and fountains, were surrounded with 
the mansions of the great and the temples of their devotion. 
The adjacent eminences were crowned with costly piles which 
wealth, directed by intelligence and controlled by taste, had 
erected for the education of the rising generation of Sum- 
nerites. The only shadow upon the enchanting landscape 
fell from the clouds of smoke that poured from the towering 
shafts of her acres of manufactories, while the whole circum- 
ference of the undulating prairie was white with endless 
sinuous trains of wagons, slowly moving toward the mys- 
terious regions of the farther West. 



Albert Deax Richardson. 69 

The squalid reality from which the magician had evoked 
this marvelous vision, displayed a sordid river, with crum- 
bling shores, upon which the boats derisively tolled funeral 
bells as thev steamed insolently past the deserted landing. 
An eruption of wretched hovels seemed to have broken out 
incoherently among the scrubby, rocky ravines and inacces- 
sible defiles that would have defied the daring of a chamois- 
hunter of the Alps. An indescribable air of poverty and 
dejection pervaded the waning population, and produced in 
a stranger a profound impression of discrepancy and incon- 
o-ruousness which even the pensive splendor of Indian summer 
could not redeem from desolation and despair. 

Richardson appreciated the situation. He read the de- 
scending scale of the spiritual thermometer, and listened to 
the unsophisticated criticisms of the occasion, with a grave, 
quiet sense of the humorous aspect of the imposture, which 
immediatelv resulted in an intimacy, interrupted only with 

his life. 

It happened to be an election day, and Richardson was 
a candidate for the Territorial Legislature. His success was 
prevented by certain local jealousies, and he never after- 
wards solicited the suffrages of his fellow-citizens. The fol- 
lowing winter he was a clerk in the Lower House, partici- 
pating with zest in the temporary removal of the capital from 
Lecompton to Lawrence, and the diversified scenes of the 
session which closed with the repeal of the "Bogus Statutes" 
of 1855. He reported with great vivacity the final act of 
the drama, in which one copy of the obnoxious volume was 
burned at night in front of the old Eldridge House, and another 
forwarded by express to the Governor of Missouri with the 



^o John James Ixgalls. 

compliments of the Legislature, and the message that Kansas 
had no further use for the book. 

At that time Richardson was about twenty-five years of age, 
and in the prime of health and strength. Rather beneath the 
ordinary stature, his frame was stalwart and strongly moulded. 
In movement, speech, and gesture, he exhibited something 
of lethargy and sluggishness which seemed at variance with 
his intellectual activity. His complexion was light; his eyes 
blue and somewhat evasive in expression ; his hair and close- 
cropped beard of yellow hue. In dress he was plain and neat, 
but indifferent to color and texture. His bearing towards 
strangers was tinctured by a certain reserv'e, which arose 
partly from natural diffidence and partly from an acquired 
distrust of his power to please. x\mong friends and familiar 
acquaintances his manners were dictated by kindly impulses, 
but lacked the polish of social attrition. To his intimates 
he admitted an embarrassment in society which he was un- 
able to conquer, although anxious to belong to the guild of 
finished gentlemen. His tastes were frugal and abstemious. 
He preferred ease to ostentation, and desired wealth for com- 
fort rather than for display. His circumstances were mod- 
erate. He earned a comfortable livelihood by his correspond- 
ence with Eastern journals, and had been considerably active 
in politics. He yielded to the contagion of town lots and 
wild lands in different parts of the Territory, and pre-empted 
a quarter-section about ten miles west of Atchison, upon which 
he erected the customary improvements, which he was accus- 
tomed to describe with extreme animation. 

His literary habits were characterized by great industry. 
He always carried a blank-book' into which he immediately 
copied any striking line or couplet of poetr}', bright expres- 



Albert Dean Richardson. 71 

sion, witty anecdote, or happy illustration, to use in his own 
labors. In a scrap-book he preserved copies of all his letters 
to different newspapers, and also every personal notice of 
himself and his productions. Iliis material was first employed 
in his correspondence, subsequently appeared in the compo- 
sition of lectures, and was finally incorporated into his pub- 
lished volumes. 

"Garnered Sheaves," consisting of his later contributions 
to the magazines of the day, has been published by his wid- 
ow since his death, and met with extensive sale. His ear- 
lier works, being upon popular topics popularly treated, had 
extraordinary success, the circulation of his "Field, Dungeon, 
and Escape" reaching above one hundred thousand. "Beyond 
the Mississippi" was almost equally successful. There are 
probably more copies of it in Kansas than of any other book 
except the Bible, and it is recognized as the most faithful 
delineation of Western life and manners that has ever been 
written. Without system, order, or coherence, it is as fasci- 
nating as a romance, and stimulates like a poem. It pos- 
sesses the charm of a dictionary or cyclopedia in enabling 
the reader to begin, skip, and close at will. And yet it would 
be unjust to deny that its merits are of the highest order. 
The future historian, dramatist, romancer, and poet of Western 
life will find it an inexhaustible mine of the most valuable 
material. Time will enhance its worth. Had the colonists 
of Virginia and Massachusetts Bay been favored with such 
a graphic observer of the men, the manners, and the happen- 
ings of their infant empire, what a boon it would have been to 
their descendants and to the civilized world! If old Miles 
Standish, Governor Winthrop, Captain John Smith, and Pow- 
hatan had passed before the retina of Richardson, history 



72 John James Ingalls. 

would have been illustrated with photographs. Its drv skel- 
eton of facts and dates would have been draped with the 
habiliments of life. Such chronicles show us men and things 
as they are in those aspects that interest us most. Had there 
been a daily newspaper printed at Athens in the days of 
Pericles, or at Rome during the reign of Cssar, a single copy 
would give us a clearer insight into the real life of the people, 
their manners and customs, their habits, their culture, their 
purposes, than all the acres of scholarly history that have 
ever been written from Josephus down. But this book of 
Richardson's has an added charm in the free, fresh life 
of which it preserves the fast-fading features. In another 
generation there will be no "West," no wilderness, no frontier, 
to stir the young blood of that era with its profound and 
subtle intoxication ; no new vStates to beget ; no deserts to 
traverse; no fascinating areas where men can escape from 
the revolting trammels of civilization and congregate with 
savage delight. The enchantment of the "Plains" has van- 
ished already. The exultation of those solemn solitudes, 
with the silent journeys by day and the lonely camp by night, 
can never again be known by the traveler, whether he looks 
from the train as it resistlessly bears him onward, or sees it 
as it rolls roaring by on its track from the Great River to the 
Pacific Sea. The aroma, the flavor of this lost life, Richard- 
son has measurably preserved. Much of its power is doubt- 
less due to the magician of memory in summoning up from 
''Time's dark backward abyss" the phantoms of buried 
things; but with due allowance for all that the reader con- 
tributes, it remains and will probably continue to be the most 
faithful transcript of one of the most important and interest- 
ing epochs in modern American history. 



Albert Dean Richardson. 73 

The impartial and vivid observer and chronicler of im- 
pressions and events must be absolutely devoid of genius. 
He must be without inspiration. He should have no convic- 
tions. It is not his mission either to convince or persuade. 
He bears the same relation to the highest intellectual devel- 
opment that Brady, the photographer, bears to Church, the 
painter. 

This was eminently true of Richardson. He is one of 
the finest modern illustrations of the day-laborer in litera- 
ture. He was a true journeyman. Letters were to him a 
trade. He wrote because he could, and not because he must. 
He carefulh- ascertained what the people were interested 
to know; then learned all he could upon the subjects, and 
told it in the most interesting manner at his command. He 
judged the value of his books by the number of copies sold, 
and pursued literature because it was a profitable vocation. 
He believed that mind was a certain force that could be suc- 
cessfullv exerted in any direction its proprietor desired. In 
an eminent degree he possessed the New England qualities 
of thrift, shrewdness, foresight, and calculation. Purchasing 
land in five counties at an early day, he studied the map 
so well that everv acre is now within sound of the whistle 
of the locomotive. He exercised the same characteristics 
in literature. The War, The West, The \\'atch, whatever 
subject he discovered to be near the head, the heart, or the 
pocket of man, he carefully investigated, note-book in hand, 
with a view to writing something that would sell. 

In morals he was governed by similar motives. He had 
no unprofitable vices. His ideas were those of a man of the 
world. His friendships, though not mercenary, were largely 
controlled bv interest, and his companions frequently found 



74 John James Ingalls. 

their good things said in conversation subsequently reap- 
pearing in type as his own. He used his friends upon all 
occasions unhesitatingly. Without being strictly candid or 
sincere, he was eminently truthful, and believed that in a 
worldly way virtue was its own reward. 

He was ambitious of success, and to a man so organized 
success was absolutely certain. His earliest aspiration was 
to be on the staff of the New York Tribune, which he accom- 
plished when its attainment seemed almost impossible. Had 
he lived, he would have achieved his highest desires. 

He probably contributed as largely as any journalist of 
the period to that unparalleled advertisement which for so 
many years has made Kansas the focus of the eyes of all 
readers on the globe. His pen and tongue were never weary 
of eulogy. Absorbed in the vortex of New York, his thoughts, 
hopes, and aspirations reverted hither with a constant, fervid 
devotion. But a few weeks before his death he was here, 
making arrangements for an estate to which he might ulti- 
mately come and spend the autumn of his years. Had he 
lived, he would have openly resumed the allegiance which 
he never relinquished save in name. 

Kansas exercised the same fascination over him that 
she does over all who have ever yielded to her spell. There 
are some women whom to have once loved renders it impos- 
sible ever to love again. As the ' 'gray and melancholy main" 
to the sailor, the desert to the Bedouin, the Alps to the moun- 
taineer, so is Kansas to all her children. 

No one ever felt any enthusiasm about Wisconsin, or 
Indiana, or Michigan. The idea is preposterous. It is im- 
possible. They are great, prosperous communities, but their in- 
habitants can remove and never desire to return. They hunger 



Albert Dean Richardson. 75 

for the horizon. They make new homes without the maladie 
du pays. But no genuine Kansan can emigrate. He mav 
wander. He may roam. He may travel. He may go else- 
where, but no other State can claim him as a citizen. Once 
naturalized, the allegiance can never be forsworn. 

Of the causes, the reasons, the occasion of his death, what 
oan be said? It is the old insoluble sexual problem which 
does so confound and tangle our noblest relations here that 
nothing less than the final conflagration can purge the race 
of the dross it brings; but out of which we seem to be ris- 
ing by gradual steps into a purer atmosphere. ]\Ian slowly 
ascends from gregariousness to monogamy. The fidelitv of 
one man to one woman, absolute, in spite of -temptation or 
death, is the ultimate ideal. Constancy is yet a splendid 
dream, but the very power to entertain it is an irresistible 
prophecy of its ultimate realization. It is the tendencv of 
the highest and purest teachings of every religion, and its 
accomplishment would be the perfection of the race. The 
nearer it is attained the happier the individual, the better 
society. Its violation, whether in accordance with law or 
against law, is uniformly visited with punishment; and to 
human judgment it seems clear that had Richardson followed 
the promptings of his best instincts, he might have avoided 
his sombre destiny. But he has passed to that tribunal from 
whose verdict there is no appeal. If there were an error, 
there has also been solemn expiation. 

"Wild words wander here and there: 
God's great gift of speech abused 
Makes thy memory confused. 

But let them rave! 
The balm cricket carols clear 
In the green that folds thy grave 
, Let them rave!" 



JOHN BROWN'S PLACE IN HISTORY. 



In the November number of the Revieu the Rev. David 
N. Utter moves to reverse the judgment heretofore rendered 
in favor of John Brown of Osawatomie, alleging that Ralph 
Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, Theodore Parker, and other 
radical Abolitionists, the makers of our history and literature, 
the trusted leaders of the North in the war for the Union, 
"a company of men and women whose peers did not exist 
in America," conspired to impose a false verdict upon man- 
kind, which has passed into the encyclopedias and biograph- 
ical dictionaries, and been accepted as true by the civilized 
world. 

In support of this motion, two averments are made. 

First. That on May 24, 1856, in the night-time, John Brown 
slew, or caused to be slain, in cold blood and without provo- 
cation, five inoffensive citizens living in the valley of Potta- 
watomie Creek. 

Second. That on August 30, 1856, at the battle of Osawa- 
tomie, John Brown ran away to save his life. 

Whereupon, David N. Utter demands that instead of be- 
ing adjudged a hero, patriot, and martyr, John Brown shall 
hereafter be held and declared to have been a felonious pol- 
troon, an impostor, and an assassin. 

The equity of history, if not its justice, requires that every 
man should be tried by the standard of his own time, in the 

76 



John Brown's Place; in History. 77 

light of all the circumstances that surrounded him, and judged 
by the avowed purposes and final results of his whole career. 
Tested by this canon, it is difficult to treat this performance 
of David N. Utter either with patience or respect. The vague 
and puerile generalizations about hero-worship and the causes 
of the war; the mild ecclesiastical sneer at New England and 
the higher law; the justification of slave-stealing; the utter 
ignorance of the fundamental facts of Kansas history ; the ap- 
proval of the acts of the Missourians in killing Frederick Brown 
and burning the cabins and stealing the stock of the other 
sons; the perversion of morals in declaring that the Potta- 
watomie massacre could be sustained if its results had been 
good, and so foreseen and foretold ; the inconsistency of affirm- 
ing in one sentence that John Brown was a hero in 1859, and in 
another that his entire public career is to be utterly condemned 
— all these produce a sensation of bewilderment, and were it 
not for the faint flavor of the conventicle that pervades the 
paper, would create the impression that it was intended as a 
burlesque, like Archbishop Whately's "Historic Doubts Rela- 
tive to Napoleon Bonaparte," rather than as a serious con- 
tribution to modem history. When he concludes by declar- 
ing that the principles of John Brown were those of the Rus- 
sian Nihilists — "First make a clean sweep of the present 
civilization, and let the future build what it can" — won- 
der becomes mingled with compassion; for there is prob- 
ably no other intelligent student of public affairs who does 
not know that the Russian Nihilists demand nothing of the 
Czar but a liberal constitutional government. However detest- 
able their methods, they do not aim at anarchy. It is sel- 
dom that an author reaches the felicity of being misinformed 
upon all subjects of which he treats. 



yS John James Ingalls. 

John Brown was born at Torrington, Conn., May 9, 1800. 
He was descended in the sixth generation from Peter Brown, 
an English carpenter, who signed the compact in the cabin 
of the Mayflower, and died in 1633. When five years old, 
John Bro\\'Ti was taken to Ohio. His youth was uneventful 
and obscure. At the age of eighteen he went to Massachu- 
setts with the design of obtaining a collegiate education and 
entering the ministry ; but, being attacked with a disorder 
of the eyes, was compelled to abandon this purpose and 
return to Ohio. In early manhood he was a surveyor, and 
traversed the forests of Pennsylvania and \'irginia. Later, 
he was for ten years engaged in business in Pennsylvania, 
and subsequently in Ohio as a tanner, a cattle-dealer, and 
speculator in real estate. In 1846 he removed with his fam- 
ily to Springfield, Mass., and dealt in wool as a commission 
merchant, without success. In, 1849 he went to North Elba, 
New York, where he toiled upon a sterile, rocky farm among 
the Adirondacks, and where his body now lies moldering in 
the grave. As early as 1839 he had formed the great life- 
purpose, which he never relinquished, for the destruction of 
African slaver}-. Thenceforward there was no divergence 
in his career. He was not distracted by ambition, nor 
wealth, nor ease, nor fame. He never hesitated. Delay did 
not baffle nor disconcert him, nor discomfiture render him 
despondent. His tenacity of purpose was inexorable. Those 
relations, possessions, and pursuits which to most men are 
the chief objects of existence — home, friends, fortune, estate, 
power — to him were the most insignificant incidents. He re- 
garded them as trivial, unimportant, and wholly subsidiary 
to the accomplishment of the great mission for which he had 
been sent upon earth. His love of justice was an irresistible 



John Brown's Place in History. 79 

passion, and slavery the accident that summoned all his powers 
into dauntless and strenuous activity. 

In the autumn of 1854 four sons and a son-in-law of John 
Brown joined the column of emigrants that marched to 
Kansas. They were farmers. They were peaceable, God- 
fearing men. They had no means of subsistence except the 
labor of their hands. They were unarmed, but they hated 
slavery, and believed that Kansas should be free. They set- 
tled near Pottawatomie Creek, built humble cabins, and began 
to cultivate the soil. They were harassed, insulted, raided- 
and plundered by gangs of marauders, and finally notified to 
leave the Territory under penalty of death. They associated 
for defense, and, unable longer to continue the unequal con- 
test, in the summer of 1855 they wrote their father to procure 
and to bring to Kansas arms, to enable them to protect their 
lives and property. He arrived, after a tedious journey, 
through Illinois and Iowa, on the 6th of October, 1855. 

David N. Utter declares that John Brown was a "disturb- 
ing influence in Kansas from the first," and that he went 
to the Territory "not as a settler, but to fight." He desig- 
nates him as an extremist and revolutionist who belonged 
to an insignificant party that was led by newspaper corre- 
spondents and stipendiaries, who really had no right to be 
in the Territory at all. He attempts to convey the impres- 
sion that, prior to the arrival of John Brown, there were no 
other "disturbing influences" at work; that although there had 
been some casual differences of opinion as to the course that 
should be pursued with regard to the slave code adopted 
bv the "Bogus Legislature" of 1855, a wise and moderate pol- 
icy of submission prevailed. The days were halcyon. It was 
like the garden of Eden, where, in pastoral tranquillity, the 



8o John James Ingalls. 

Adams and Eves were naming the beasts and cultivating the 
fig-tree whose foliage was so soon to be unfortunately more 
important than its fruit. Even the destruction of Lawrence 
is dismissed with a flippant paragraph as scarcely worthy 
of notice. "There was no resistance, and nobody was killed 
except bv accident," murmurs the placid historian. He prob- 
ablv considers that the drunken mob of eight hundred border 
ruffians who had assembled on their own account, as he says, 
to wipe out the Abolition town, went to the Territory as "set- 
tlers," and not, like John Brown, "to fight." 

Thev were not, like John Brown, "a disturbing influence." 
Thev went to Kansas "to make homes and build a State," 
and so, unlike John Brown, their voice was not ' ' for war. " Like 
the gentleman described by Tacitus, they wanted peace. 

There was no trouble till John Brown came with his per- 
nicious revolutionary doctrines. "The pillage and the burn- 
ing were in consequence of his crimes, and for the whole 
he deserves censure rather than praise," concludes David N. 
Utter, who calls this process the "revaluation of our war 
heroes," and "getting at the exact facts in every case, let 
them be what they may," for the benefit of the younger 
generation, who do not love truth more, but need heroes less, 
than the men of twenty years ago, in the language of this 
evangelical iconoclast. It may interest the younger gener- 
ation to hear a brief account of what occurred in the inter- 
val between July 2, 1855, and May 21, 1856, over which this 
revaluer of heroes skips with such airy levity. 

The Legislature was elected March 30th by Missourians 
who entered the Territory in armed bands for that purpose. 
Nearly eight hundred attended the polls at Lawrence, with 
pistols, rifles, Bowie-knives, and two cannons, loaded with 



John Brown's PlacB in History. 8i 

musket-balls. Both branches of the Legislature were unan- 
imously Pro-slavery after July 23d. They devised a scheme 
by which the people were deprived for two years of all con- 
trol over the executive, legislative, and judicial departments of 
the Territorial government. They filled all the offices with 
Pro-slavery men, and adopted an act to punish offenses against 
slave property which is probably the most infamous stat- 
ute that ever blackened the code of any civilized people. 
It afiixed the penalty of death to the crime of carrying or 
assisting slaves out of the Territory with the intent to pro- 
cure their freedom, and punished the denial of the right to 
hold slaves with imprisonment at hard labor for two years 
with ball and chain. 

They adjourned August 30th, and the laws were published 
in October. The Free State party met at Big vSprings, Septem- 
ber 5th, and adopted, among other resolutions, the following: 

"That we will endure and submit to these laws no longer than the best 
interests of the Territory require, as the least of two evils, and will resist 
them to a bloody issue as soon as we ascertain that peaceable remedies 
shall fail and forcible resistance shall furnish any reasonable prospect of 
success; and that in the meantime we recommend to our friends through- 
out the Territory the organization and discipline of volunteer companies 
and the procurement and preparation of arms." 

This convention was followed by another at Topeka on 
the 19th, to take preliminary steps for the formation of a 
constitution. Delegates were chosen October 9th, assem- 
bled on the 23d, and adjourned November nth. On the 
14th the "Law and Order" party was organized at Leaven- 
worth, and the blood of Free State men began to flow. As 
early as May these friends of freedom had shaved, tarred 
and feathered, ridden on a rail, and sold by a negro auctioneer 
for one dollar, William Phillips, who had ventured to pro- 



82 John James Ingalls. 

test against the validity of an election in Leavenworth. In 
August they subjected Rev. Pardee Butler to great personal 
indignity at Atchison, and set him adrift down the Missouri 
on a log raft, because he refused to sign some resolutions 
adopted at a Pro-slavery meeting held in that town. But 
these mild remedies were now abandoned. On November 
2ist Dow was killed. Branson was arrested for taking part 
in a meeting held to denounce the murder. He was rescued, 
and the sheriff summoned a posse. The Governor called 
upon all good citizens to aid in Branson's recapture. The 
excitement was intense. Armed bands crossed the Mis- 
souri and hastened to their rendezvous at Franklin, under the 
command of Atchison, a United States senator. The roads 
were patrolled and wagons robbed. On the 6th of December 
Barber was shot while traveling homeward. Companies of 
Free State soldiers marched to the defense of the beleaguered 
town of Lawrence. Among them were old John Brown and 
his four sons, equipped for battle. A spectator says : 

• They drove up in front of the Free State Hotel, standing in a small 
lumber- wagon. To each of their persons was strapped a short, heavy 
broadsv^ord. Each was supplied with fire-arms and revolvers, and poles 
were standing endwise around the wagon-box with fixed bayonets, point- 
ing upward." 

A gaunt, grim, gray, formidable figure ! Evidently he was 
there "not as a settler, but to fight"! But there was no 
fight. Both sides regarded discretion as the better part of 
valor. The forces were disbanded, and John Brown and his 
sons drove their lumber-wagon, with their broadswords, guns, 
pistols, and pikes to their cabins on the Pottawatomie. 

The election under the Topeka constitution was held Janu- 
ary 17, 1856. The next morning three Free State men, go- 



John Brown's Place in History. 83 

ing home from Easton, were assailed by a horde of ruffians. 
Captain R. P. Brown, a member-elect of the Legislature, went 
to their relief and routed the assailants. The three men, with 
Captain Brown, continued on their way toward Leavenworth, 
and were again attacked and overpowered. At night they 
were all released but Brown, who was dragged out, hacked 
and gashed with hatchets and knives, thrown into a wagon, 
exhausted, bleeding, benumbed with cold, arid soon expired. 

Other murders followed. Governor Shannon said that "the 
roads were literally strewed with dead bodies." The Mis- 
souri River, the chief highway to the territory, was closed, 
and steamers were searched for ammunition and supplies. 
In April, Major Buford arrived with large reinforcements from 
Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina. Efforts to arrest 
Free State men were continued and were resisted. United 
States troops were sent to Lawrence to aid the civil authori- 
ties. A complacent and obsequious grand jury was assembled 
that found indictments against Governor Robinson, Reeder, 
and others for high treason, because they had participated in 
the Free State movement. The Governor fled from the Ter- 
ritory in disguise ; Robinson was arrested while en route to the 
East, and brought back under guard for trial. The district 
court conceived and promulgated the extraordinary doctrine 
of "constructive treason." Anarchy prevailed, and on the 
morning of May 21, 1856, a deputy United States marshal, 
with an immense posse, entered Lawrence and arrested a large 
number of citizens for constructive treason and for bearino- 
arms against the "Government." Later in the day, Sheriff 
Jones appeared with an armed force and an order of court to 
destroy as nuisances, two newspaper offices and the Free State 
Hotel. A demand for the surrender of arms was complied 



84 John JamEs Ingalls. 

with; a blood-red banner with a single star and the legend, 
"South Carolina," was unfurled. The printing offices were 
destroyed and the material thrown in the river. Four cannon 
were trained on the hotel, and it was demolished. The day 
closed with the pillage of stores and houses. The dwelling of 
Governor Robinson was burned, and night was hideous with 
the frenzied orgy of the drunken and triumphant marauders. 
The total value of the property destroyed was about two hun- 
dred thousand dollars. 

The subjugation of Kansas by the slave power now appeared 
to be accomplished. The Free State leaders were in prison; 
the principal towns of the Territory were in the hands of the 
enemy. This was the result of the "wiser and more moderate 
policy of submitting," which David X. Utter says had "all 
along the support of the very best citizens, even the most 
earnest Abolitionists." 

It is not necessary now to discuss the wisdom or unwisdom 
of the policy of non-resistance which had prevailed to this 
juncture among the friends of freedom in Kansas. Their sit- 
uation was difficult and delicate. The National Administra- 
tion was the ally of their insolent and brutal foes in Mis- 
souri and the South. Rival ambitions distracted their coun- 
cils. Many of the colonists from Indiana, Illinois, and other 
States along the border, although opposed to slavery, were 
equally hostile to free negroes, and insisted that they should 
be excluded from the State. Some favored immediate eman- 
cipation; others thought slavery should not be disturbed 
where it existed. Diplomacy was required to avoid dissension. 
Passion, violence, and retaliation might have invoked more 
irreparable disasters, though nothing could have much retarded 
the crisis which we now see had been long impending. 



John Brown's Pi.ace in History. 85 

John Brown regarded the policy as nerveless and emascu- 
lated. It became soon apparent that he was in earnest. His 
impatient criticisms upon the political leaders were caustic 
and intolerable. He was not a politician, and wanted no 
office. He had no sympathy with the demand that Kansas 
should be a free white State. He believed in the fatherhood 
of God and the brotherhood of man. 

The effect of the destruction of Lawrence was instantane- 
ous. Emboldened by their long immunity, the Pro-slavery 
leaders openly avowed the policy of extermination, and called 
upon their followers, in the chastely picturesque language of 
the Squatter Sovereign newspaper, to ' ' tar and feather, drown, 
lynch, and hang every white-livered Abolitionist who dares to 
pollute our soil." 

The companv to which John Brown and his sons belonged 
had marched to the relief of Lawrence on the 21st, but, learn- 
ing of its destruction, had camped in the valley of Ottawa 
Creek, several miles south. The next day Major Williams, a 
neighbor and friend of the Browns, rode into camp and told 
them that trouble was anticipated on the Pottawatomie. 
'Squire Morse had been notified to leave the Territory within 
three days. John Grant, Mr. Winer, and several others in the 
neighborhood had received similar notices from George Wilson, 
the probate judge of the county. Judge Hanway, of Lane, 
who lived near, and whose death occurred recently, says the 
conspiracy was formed to "drive out, burn, and kill; and that 
Pottawatomie Creek was to be cleared of every man, woman, 
and child who was for Kansas being a free State." 

Among the most active and resolute of these "Law and 
Order" partisans were the Doyles, father and sons; the 
brothers William and Henrv Sherman, Allen Wilkinson, and 



86 John James Ingalls. 

George Wilson. Wilkinson, a native of Tennessee, was post- 
master and had been a member of the "Bogus Legislature." He 
was a violent ruffian, and his widow remarked to Dr. Gilpat- 
rick, the first person who called on the morning after his death, 
that she had often urged him to be more quiet and moderate in 
his language, but that he would not heed her advice. When 
the news of the fall of Lawrence arrived, Henry vSherman 
raised a red flag over his cabin, and announced thai the war 
had begun. Henry was an amiable person. In a previous 
judicial proceeeding he declared, under oath, that he "would 
rather kill that old man who wore spectacles and lived on the 
hill than to kill a rattlesnake." The object of his animad- 
version was the Rev. David Baldwin, long afterward resident 
at Garnett, in an adjoining county. 

The story of the death of these men has been circumstan- 
tially told bv James Townsley, who accompanied the expedi- 
tion, and, barring some tawdry rhetoric, is fairly repeated by 
David N. Utter; but he omits to add what Townsley says in 
his statement on the 3d of August, 1882, as to the effect of the 
killing. His words are : 

"I became and am satisfied that it resulted in good to the Free State 
cause, and was especially beneficial to the Free State settlers on Pottawa- 
tomie Creek. The Pro-slavery men were dreadfully terrified, and large 
numbers of them left the Territory. It was afterward said that one Free 
State man could scare a company of them." 

Judge Hanway, before quoted, says: 

"I did not know of a settler of '56 but what regarded it as amongst 
the most fortunate events in the history of Kansas. It saved the lives of 
the Free State men on the Creek, and those who did the act were looked 
upon as deliverers." 

One of the most eminent of the Free State leaders, who is 
still living, writes : 



John Brown's Place in History. 87 

"He was the only man who comprehended the situation, and saw the 
absolute necessity for some such blow, and had the nerve to strike it." 

Another prominent actor writes : 

"I wish to say right here about the Pottawatomie Creek massacre, 
which has been the theme of so much magazine literature, that at the 
time it occurred it was approved by myself and hundreds of others, includ- 
the most prominent of the leaders among the Free State men. 

"It was one of the stern, merciless necessities of the times. The night 
it was done I was but a few miles away on guard, to protect from destruc - 
tion the homes of Free State men and their families, who had been notified 
by these men and their allies to leave within a limited time or forfeit their 
lives and property. The women and children dared not sleep in the 
houses, and were hid away in the thickets. Something had to be done, and 
the avenger appeared, and the doomed men perished — they who had 
doomed others." 

It was the "blood-and-iron" prescription of Bismarck. 
The Pro-slavery butchers of Kansas and their Missouri confed- 
erates learned that it was no longer safe to kill. They discov- 
ered, at last, that nothing is so unprofitable as injustice. They 
started from their guilty dream to find before them, silent and 
tardy, but inexorable and relentless, with uplifted blade, the 
awful apparition of vengeance and retribution. 

When John Brown, Jr., learned of the massacre, we were 
informed that he resigned his command and went home, where 
he was soon after arrested. So great was his abhorrence of his 
father's crime that he became insane, and during his ravings 
denounced his father as an atrocious criminal and unmiti- 
gated coward. These statements are made upon the testi- 
mony of G. W. Brown, in the Herald of Freedom in 1859. The 
witness may be competent, but he is not disinterested. He 
sustains the same relation to the anti-slavery men of '56 that 
Judas Iscariot did to the disciples, and is as well qualified 
to write their history as Judas Iscariot would be to revise 
the New Testament. John Brown, Jr., instead of being "ar- 



88 John Jamejs IngaIvIvS. 

rested," was captured by Captain Pate, manacled with ox- 
chains, and driven under a hot sun till he became delirious 
from heat, fatigue, and hunger. He wrote many letters to # 
liis father while in captivity. The following extracts from 
one, dated September 8, 1856, will show the relations that 
existed between them, and the opinion he entertained of his 
father : 

*'Dear Father and Brother: 

.<* * * if. Having before heard of Frederick's death, and that 
you were missing, my anxiety on your account has been most intense. 
Though my dear brother I shall never see again here, yet I thank God you 
and Jason still live. Poor Frederick has perished in a good cause, the suc- 
cess of which cause I trust will yet bring joy to millions. * * * * 

"I can, I have no doubt, succeed in making my escape to you from 
here. * * * * I am anxious to see you both, in order to perfect some 
plan of escape, in case it should appear best. Come up if you consistently 
can. The battle of Osawatomie is considered here as the great fight so 
far, and, considering the enemy's loss, it is certainly a great victory for us 
— certainly a very dear burning of the town for them. * * * * 
Everyone I hear speaking of you are loud in your praise. The Missou- 
rians in this region show signs of great fear. * * * * 

" Hoping to see you soon, I am, as ever, 

" Your affectionate Son and Brother." 

"The effect of the transaction upon Kansas, according to 
David N. Utter, was "only evil," and upon the career of John 
Brown was "pervasive, decisive, overwhelming," whatever 
that may mean. He could not live in Kansas, continues 
the veracious chronicler, nor anywhere else safely, so he dis- 
guised himself by cutting off his beard and fled to New Eng- 
land, where he won the confidence of some of her greatest and 
noblest men; after which he hovered on the border of two 
. States, waiting for a signal from some unknown person to come 
over to Kansas and massacre a constitutional convention. 
There were so many in those days thai one could have been 
killed without being missed; but for some reason the plot 



John Brown's Place; in History. 89 

failed, and after awhile he ventured into Kansas again, made 
a raid into Missouri, captured some slaves, and escorted them 
to Canada. 

This reaches the true dignity of history. As a matter of 
fact, John Brown did live many months in Kansas after the 
Pottawatomie slaughter. He participated in the battles at 
Franklin, Battle Mound, Sugar Creek, Osawatomie, and Black 
Jack. He was present at the siege of Lawrence in September, 
and soon after went East for funds and arms. He lay ill 
several weeks in Iowa, but reached Chicago in November. 
Early in 1857 he reached Boston, and appeared in "disguise" 
before the IvCgislature, asking an appropriation of ten thou- 
sand dollars to defend Northern men in Kansas. Later in the 
season he returned to the Territory, where he remained with 
brief interv^als of absence until January, 1859, organizing his 
forces for the final crusade against slavery, in accordance with 
plans long entertained and definitely embodied in his "Pro- 
visional Constitution," framed at Chatham, Canada West, in 
May, 1858. 

In December, 1858, a negro from Missouri came to his cabin 
on the Osage, and informed him that he was about to be sold, 
with his family, and begged for aid to escape. John Brown 
immediately organized two companies, invaded Missouri, lib- 
erated eleven slaves, and returned with the supplies necessary 
for their support. The Governor of the State offered three 
thousand dollars reward for the arrest of John Brown, which 
the President of the United States supplemented with an offer 
of two hundred and fifty more. John Brown retorted by a 
printed proclamation, offering two dollars and fifty cents for 
the delivery of James Buchanan to him in camp. He moved 
slowly northward with his four families of emigrants, colonized 



90 John JamES Ingall,s. 

them near Windsor in Canada in March, 1859, and returned to 
Kansas no more. 

His subsequent career belongs to the history of the Nation. 
Out of the portentous and menacing cloud of anti-slavery sen- 
timent that had long brooded with sullen discontent, a baleful 
meteor above the North, he sprang like a terrific thunderbolt, 
whose lurid glare illuminated the continent with its devastating 
flame, and whose reverberations among the splintered crags of 
Harper's Ferry^ were repeated on a thousand battle-fields from 
Gettysburg to the Gulf. From the instant that shot was fired 
the discussion and debate of centuries was at an end. He who 
was not for slavery was against it. The North became verte- 
brated, and the age of cartilage and compromise was at an end. 
The Nation seized the standard of universal emancipation 
which dropped from his dying hand on the scaffold at Charles- 
town, and bore it in triumph to Appomattox. 

He died as he had lived, a Puritan of the Puritans. There 
was no perturbation in his serene and steadfast soul. Few 
productions in literature are more remarkable than his letters 
written in prison, while he was under sentence of death. He 

said: 

"I can trust God with both the time and the manner of my death, 
beUeving, as I now do, that for me at this time to seal my testimony for 
God and humanity with my blood w411 do vastly more toward advancing 
the cause I have earnestly endeavored to promote than all I have done in 
my life before." 

"As I beheve most firmly that God reigns, I cannot beheve that any- 
thing I have done, suffered, or may yet suffer will be lost to the cause of 
God or humanity; and before I began my work at Harper's Ferry I felt 
assured that, in the worst event, it would certainly pay." 

" I am quite cheerful. I do not feel myself in the least degraded by my 
imprisonment, my chains, or the near prospect of the gallows. Men can- 
not imprison, chain, nor hang the soul ! * * * I am endeavoring 
to get ready for another field of action, where no defeat befalls the truly 
brave." 



JoHx Brown's Place in History. 91 

"It is a great comfort to feel assured that I am permitted to die for a 
cause, and not merely to pay the debt of Nature, which all must. I feel 
myself to be most unworthy of so great distinction." 

"I feel just as content to die for God's eternal truth, and for suffering 
humanity, on the scaffold as in any other way." 

"I think I cannot now better serve the cause I love so much than to 
die for it; and in my death I may do more than in my life." 

"I do not believe I shall deny my Lord and Master Jesus Christ, and 
I should if I denied my principles against slavery." 

What immortal and dauntless courage breathes in this pro- 
cession of stately sentences; what fortitude; what patience; 
what faith; what radiant and eternal hope! Xo pagan phil- 
osopher, no Hebrew prophet, no Christian martyr, ever spoke 
in loftier and more heroic strains than this "coward and mur- 
derer," who declared from the near brink of an ignominious 
grave that there was no acquisition so splendid as moral 
purity; no inheritance so desirable as personal libertv; noth- 
ing on this earth nor in the world to come so valuable as the 
soul, whatever the hue of its habitation; no impulse so noble 
as an unconquerable purpose to love truth, and an invincible 
determination to obey God. 

Carlyle says that when any great change in human society 
is to be wrought, God raises up men to whom that change is 
made to appear as the one thing needful and absolutelv indis- 
pensable. Scholars, orators, poets, philanthropists play their 
parts, but the crisis comes at last through some one who is 
stigmatized as a fanatic by his contemporaries, and whom the 
supporters of the systems he assails crucify between thieves or 
gibbet as a felon. The man who is not afraid to die for an idea 
is its most potential and convincing advocate. 

Already the great intellectual leaders of the movement for 
the abolition of slaverv are dead. The student of the future 



92 John Jame;s Ingalls. 

will exhume their orations, arguments, and state papers as a 
part of the subterranean history of the epoch. The antiqua- 
rian will dig up their remains from the alluvial drift of the 
period, and construe their relations to the great events in 
which they were actors ; but the three men of this era who will 
loom forever against the remotest horizon of time, as the Pyra- 
mids above the voiceless deserts, or mountain peaks over the 
subordinate plains, are Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and 
Old John Brown of Osawatomie. 



EULOGY. 

On the Death of Senator Henry B. Anthony, of 

Rhode Island. 



The ser\-icc of Senator Anthony in this bodv exceeded the 
entire period of the Repubhcan ascendency, from Lincoln to 
Garfield — a momentous interval, characterized bv unprece- 
dented activity of the material, intellectual, and moral ener- 
gies of the Nation, and resulting in structural changes in gov- 
ernment and society. 

It was an epoch of tremendous passions; of vague and 
indefinite morality; of frenzied debate; of anomalous states- 
manship. There were giants in those days, and when the 
Macaulay of another age shall turn to rehearse their history, 
he shall find little in our recorded annals to explain the remark- 
able and long-continued prominence of Senator Anthony in 
his State and the country, or the extraordinary influence he 
exercised upon all his contemporaries. 

Without the learning and eloquence of Sumner, the logic of 
Fessenden, the restless industry of Wilson, or the intense and 
relentless energy of Chandler and Morton, he was the trusted 
counselor and companion of all, and was accorded the highest 
positions of confidence and honor to which a senator can 
aspire. 

For twenty-five years Senator Anthony uttered no word 
in debate in this chamber that is not recorded, but how faint 

93 



94 John James Ingalls. 

and unsatisfactory is the portrait that this will present to pos- 
terity. Those who recall the melody of his diction and the 
dignity of his delivery will always wonder with regret that he 
so seldom spoke who spoke so well ; but no printed page could 
record the gentle and benignant courtesy which shone in hi? 
demeanor and lent a nameless but irresistible charm to his 
deportment and bearing; the confident courage that despised 
the paltry arts and hollow clamors of the demagogue; the 
stainless honor that knew no taint of perfidy or guile. 

He was a minister of grace. He never made an enemv 
and never lost a friend. The envy that might have been 
aroused by his early success was averted by the sensitive 
delicacy of his nature; and the jealousy that might have 
been excited by his long supremacy was disarmed by his 
loyalty to his friends, by his fidelity to his convictions, by 
his unsullied integrity, by the temperate restraint of his 
spirit, which no heat of controversy could disturb, nor any 
rancor of partisanship provoke to retaliation unworthy of a 
Christian and a gentleman. 

The entire career of Senator Anthony was one of unique 
and singular felicity. For him fate spared its irony. Nem- 
esis was propitiated. Fortune favored him. Time denied 
him none of those possessions that are regarded as the chief 
requisites of human happiness. He escaped calumny, and 
detraction passed him by. There was no winter in his years. 
He had length of days without infirmity. His ambition was 
satisfied. Honor, health, love, friendship, affluence, which so 
often with capricious disdain elude the most strenuous pur- 
suit, attended him as courtiers surround a monarch. His 
life was not fragmentary and unfinished, but full-orbed and 
complete. Death was not an interruption, but a climax. 



Senator Henry B. Anthony. 95 

His sun was neither obscured nor eclipsed, but followed its 
appointed path to the western horizon. So he departed, and 
above his spirit and fame abides the enduring covenant of 
peace ; 

" His memory, like a cloudless sky; 
His conscience, like a sea at rest." 



HAPPINESS. 



Happiness is an endowment, and not an acquisition. It 
depends more upon temperament and disposition than envi- 
ronment. It is a state or condition of mind, and not a com- 
modity to be bought or sold in the market. A beggar may be 
happier in his rags than a king in his purple. Poverty is no 
more incompatible with happiness than wealth, and the inquiry, 
How to be happy though poor? implies a want of understand- 
ing of the conditions upon which happiness depends. Dives 
was not happy because he was a millionaire, nor Lazarus 
wretched because he was a pauper. There is a quality in the 
soul of man that is superior to circumstances and that defies 
calamity and misfortune. The man who is unhappy when he 
is poor would be unhappy if he were rich, and he who is happy 
in a palace in Paris would be happy in a dug-out on the frontier 
of Dakota. There are as many unhappy rich men as there 
are unhappy poor men. Every heart knows its own bitter- 
ness and its own joy. Not that wealth and what it brings 
is not desirable — books, travel, leisure, comfort, the best food 
and raiment, agreeable companionship — but all these do not 
necessarily bring happiness and may coexist with the deepest 
wretchedness, while adversity and penury, exile and privation 
are not incompatible with the loftiest exaltation of the soul. 

"More true joy Marcellus exiled feels, 
Than Caesar with a Senate at his heels." 



OPPORTUNITY. 



Master of human destinies am If 

Fame, love and fortune on my footsteps wait. 
Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate 

Deserts and seas remote, and passing by 
Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late 
/ knock unbidden once at every gate ! 

ijTleeping, wake; if feasting, rise before 
I turn away. It is the hour of fate. 
And they who follow me reach every state 
Mortals desire, and conquer every foe 

Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate, 
Condemned to failure, penury and woe, 

Seek vie in vain and uselessly implore. 

I answer not, and I return no more ! 



97 



MY SPRING RESIDENCE. 



(Published in The Williayns (College) Quarterly, June, 1855.) 

Build me a pillared Castle in the Air 

Within some movmtain's purple hollow, scooped 

Upon its western slope, mid forests where 

The clouds are anchored and the pines are looped 
A\'itli braided gold and gloom. 

Drowse it with murmured hum of droning bees 
And sleepy din of fountains spouting wine 

Whose spray shall drown the sense in ecstasies 
And wrap the air, as incense from a shrine, 
In faint and rare perfume. 

Story its walls with pictures seen in dream; 

The loves of gods and wreathing groups of maids 
"With slender throats and hair in golden stream; 

The palpitating hues and woven shades 
From sunset's cloudy loom. 

Carve fluted columns zenith-high; a dome 

Of Grecian harmony, and capitals 
Remote in air above the eagle's home. 

Set statues upon sculptured pedestals 
Round the majestic room. 

Let mild-eyed Shakspeare sit upon the throne, 
With wild, impetuous Shelley at his side; 

Then he, bv Gorgon critics turned to stone. 
Who felt, long summer days before he died, 
White daises on his tomb. 

Thrill the dumb air with distant music poured 

Through silver tubes, or shaken from the strings 
Of melancholy harps to the accord 

Of cataracts, whose water leaps and sings 
Swift through a rocky flume. 
98 



My Spring Residence. 99 

Strew me a couch knee-deep with flowers and grass, 

With cool and oozy mosses for my head. 
And curtain it with vines whose buds are stars, 

With trailing arbute and primroses red 
Just bursting into bloom. 

Gird my enchanted valley with a zone 

Of snowy summits fading to the sea, 
Lit by a sun which like an opal-stone 

Glows with a mild, fantastic brilliancy 
To burn but not consume. 

Through the blue landscape, leagues remote and deep, 

A glimmering river smiles along its way 
As a bright dream flows through the lands of sleep 

And wastes in the oblivious sea of day 
Which ahen skies illume. 

Here will I dwell in delicatest rest. 

And watch the clouds that paint the evening sky. 

Or slope their walls of gray along the west 
And march afar in rainy rhythm by 

With flame and sea-like boom; 

Untwine the music of the leaves and brooks 

And let the world neglected thunder on: 
What recks the clutch of gold, the greed of books, 

The scholar's laurel or the poet's crown, 
The victor's sword and plume? 

A life of calm repose and liberal ease 

Orbed by the limits of impassioned sense; 
A life of summer days on singing seas, 
A voyage without cause or consequence, 
Be this my GodHke doom' 
Golden Hill, 1855. 

u. . or o. 



BLUE GRASS. 



Attracted by the bland softness of an afternoon in my 
primeval winter in Kansas, I rode southward through the 
dense forest that then covered the bluffs of the North Fork 
of Wildcat. The ground was sodden with the ooze of melt- 
ing snow. The dripping trees were as motionless as granite. 
The last year's leaves, tenacious lingerers, loath to leave 
the scene of their brief bravery, adhered to the gray boughs 
like fragile bronze. There were no visible indications of life, 
but the broad, wintry landscape was flooded with that inde- 
scribable splendor that never was on sea or shore — a purple 
and silken softness, that half veiled, half disclosed the alien 
horizon, the vast curves of the remote river, the transient 
architecture of the clouds, and filled the responsive soul with 
a vague tumult of emotions, pensive and pathetic, in which 
regret and hope contended for the mastery. The dead and 
silent globe, with all its hidden kingdoms, seemed swimming 
like a bubble, suspended in an ethereal solution of amethyst 
and silver, compounded of the exhaling whiteness of the 
snow, the descending glory of the sky. A tropical atmos- 
phere brooded upon an arctic scene, creating the strange 
spectacle of summer in winter, June in January, peculiar to 
Kansas, which unseen cannot be imagined, but once seen can 
never [be forgotten. A sudden descent into the sheltered 
valley revealed an unexpected crescent of dazzling verdure. 



Blue Grass. ioi 

glittering like a meadow in early spring, unreal as an incan- 
tation, surprising as the sea to the soldiers of Xenophon as 
they stood upon the shore and shouted, "Thalatta!" It was 
Blue Grass, unknown in Eden, the final triumph of Nature, 
reserved to compensate her favorite offspring in the new 
paradise of Kansas for the loss of the old upon the banks of 
the Tigris and Euphrates. 

Next in importance to the divine profusion of water, 
light, and air, those three great physical facts which render 
existence possible, may be reckoned the universal benefi- 
cence of grass. Exaggerated by tropical heats and vapors 
to the gigantic cane congested with its saccharine secretion, 
or dwarfed by polar rigors to the fibrous hair of northern 
solitudes, embracing between these extremes the maize with 
its resolute pennons, the rice plant of Southern swamps, the 
wheat, rye, barley, oats, and other cereals, no less than the 
humbler verdure of hillside, pasture, and prairie in the tem- 
perate zone, grass is the most widely distributed of all veo-- 
etable beings, and is at once the type of our life and the emblem 
of our mortality. Lying in the sunshine among the butter- 
cups and dandelions of May, scarcely higher in intelligence 
than the minute tenants of that mimic wilderness, our earli- 
est recollections are of grass; and when the fitful fever is 
ended, and the foolish wrangle of the market and forum is 
closed, grass heals over the scar which our descent into the 
bosom of the earth has made, and the carpet of the infant 
becomes the blanket of the dead. 

As he reflected upon the brevity of human life, grass has 
been the favorite symbol of the moralist, the chosen theme 
of the philosopher. "All flesh is grass," said the prophet; 
"My days are as the grass," sighed the troubled patriarch; 



I02 John James Ingalls. 

and the pensive Nebuchadnezzar, in his penitential mood^ 
exceeded even these, and, as the sacred historian informs us^ 
did eat grass like an ox. 

Grass is the forgiveness of Nature — her constant bene- 
diction. Fields trampled with battle, saturated with blood,, 
torn with the ruts of cannon, grow green again with grass, 
and carnage is forgotten. Streets abandoned by traffic become 
grass-grown like rural lanes, and are obliterated. Forests de- 
cay, harvests perish, flowers vanish, but grass is immortal. 
Beleaguered bv the sullen hosts of winter, it withdraws into 
the impregnable fortress of its subterranean vitality, and 
emerges upon the first solicitation of spring. Sown by the 
winds, by wandering birds, propagated by the subtle hor- 
ticulture of the elements which are its ministers and servants,, 
it softens the rude outline of the world. Its tenacious fibres, 
hold the earth in its place, and prevent its soluble compo- 
nents from washing into the wasting sea. It invades the soli- 
tude of deserts, climbs the inaccessible slopes and forbidding 
pinnacles of mountains, modifies climates, and determines the 
history, character, and destiny of nations. Unobtrusive and 
patient, it has immortal vigor and aggression. Banished from 
the thoroughfare and the field, it abides its time to return, and 
when vigilance is relaxed, or the dynasty has perished, it 
silentlv resumes the throne from which it has been expelled, 
but which it never abdicates. It bears no blazonry of bloom 
to charm the senses with fragrance or splendor, but its homelv 
hue is more enchanting than the lily or the rose. It yields no 
fruit in earth or air, and yet should its harvest fail for a single 
year, famine would depopulate the world. 

One grass differs from another grass in glory. One is 
vulgar and another patrician. There are grades in its veg- 



Blue Grass. 103 

etable nobility. Some varieties are useful. Some are beau- 
tiful. Others combine utility and ornament. The sour, reedy 
herbage of swamps is base-born. Timothy is a valuable serv- 
ant. Redtop and clover are a degree higher in the social scale. 
But the king of them all, with genuine blood royal, is Blue 
Grass. Why it is called blue, save that it is most vividly and 
intensely green, is inexplicable; but had its unknown priest 
baptized it with all the hues of the prism, he would not have 
changed its hereditary title to imperial superiority over all its 
humbler kin. 

Taine, in his incomparable history of English literature, 
has well said that the body of man in every country is deeply 
rooted in the soil of Nature. He might properly have de- 
clared that men were wholly rooted in the soil, and the char- 
acter of nations, like that of forests, tubers, and grains, is 
entirely determined by the climate and soil in which they 
germinate. Dogmas grow like potatoes. Creeds and carrots, 
catechisms and cabV)ages, tenets and turnips, religion and ruta- 
bagas, governments and grasses, all depend upon the dew- 
point and the thermal range. Give the philosopher a handful 
of soil, the mean annual temperature and rainfall, and his anal- 
ysis would enable him to predict with absolute certainty the 
characteristics of the nation. 

Calvinism transplanted to the plains of the Ganges would 
perish of inanition. Webster is as much an indigenous prod- 
uct of New England as its granite and its pines. Napoleon 
was possible only in France; Cromwell in England; Christ, 
and the splendid invention of immortality, alone in Pales- 
tine. Moral causes and qualities exert influences far beyond 
their nativity, and ideas are transplanted and exported to 
meet the temporary requirements of the tastes or necessities 



I04 John James Ingalls, 

■of man ; as we see exotic palms in the conservatories of Chats- 
worth, russet apples at Surinam, and oranges in Atchison. 
But there is no growth; nothing but change of location. The 
phenomena of politics exhibit the operations of the same law. 
'Contrast the enduring fabric of our federal liberties with the 
•abortive struggles of Mexico and the Central American repub- 
lics. The tropics are inconsistent with democracy. Tyranny 
is alien to the temperate zone. 

The direct agency upon which all these conditions depend, 
and through which these forces operate, is food. Temper- 
ature, humidiLy, soil, sunlight, electricity, vital force, express 
themselves primarily in vegetable existence that furnishes 
the basis of that animal life which yields sustenance to the 
human race. What a man. a community, a nation can do, 
think, suffer, imagine, or achieve depends upon what it eats. 
Bran-eaters and vegetarians are not the kings of men. Rice 
and potatoes are the diet of slaves. The races that live on 
beef have ruled the world; and the better the beef the great- 
er the deeds they have done. Mediaeval Europe, the Van- 
dals and Huns and Goths, ate the wild hog, whose brutal 
ferocity was repeated in their truculent valor, and whose 
loathsome protoplasm bore the same relation to that barbar- 
ous epoch that a rosy steak from a short-horned Durham 
does to the civilization of the nineteenth century. A dim 
consciousness of the intimate connection between regimen and 
religion seems to have dawned upon the intellectual horizon 
of those savage tribes who eat the missionaries which a mis- 
guided philanthropy has sent to save their souls from perdi- 
tion. A wiser charity would avail itself of the suggestions of 
modem science, and forward potted apostles, desiccated saints, 
and canned evangelists directly to the scene of their labors 



Blue Grass. 105 

among these hungering pagans. vSome clerical Liebig has here 
an opportunity for immediate distinction. 

The primary form of food is grass. Grass feeds the ox: 
the ox nourishes man: man dies and goes to grass again; 
and so the tide of life, with everlasting repetition, in contin- 
uous circles, moves endlessly on and upward, and in more 
senses than one, all flesh is grass. But all flesh is not blue 
grass. If it were, the devil's occupation would be gone. 

There is a portion of Kentucky known as the ' ' Blue Grass 
Region," and it is safe to say that it has been the arena of the 
most magnificent intellectual and physical development that has 
been witnessed among men or animals upon the American con- 
tinent, or perhaps upon the whole face of the world. In cor- 
roboration of this belief, it is necessary only to mention Henry 
Clay, the orator, and the horse Lexington, both peerless, electric, 
immortal. The ennobling love of the horse has extended to all 
other races of animals. Incomparable herds of high-bred cattle 
graze the tranquil pastures ; their elevating protoplasm supply- 
ing a finer force to human passion, brain, and will. Hog art- 
ists devote their genius to shortening the snouts and swelling 
the hams of their grunting brethren. The reflex of this so- 
licitude appears in the muscular, athletic vigor of the men, and 
the voluptuous beauty of the women who inhabit this favored 
land. Palaces, temples, forests, peaceful institutions, social 
order, spring like exhalations from the congenial soil. • 

All these marvels are attributable as directly to the poten- 
tial influence of blue grass as day and night to the revolution 
of the earth. Eradicate it, substitute for it the scrawny 
herbage of impoverished barrens, and in a single generation 
man and beast would alike degenerate into a common decay. 
And herein lies the fundamental error of those social and 



io6 John James Ingalls. 

moral economists who attempt to ameliorate the condition 
of the degraded orders by commencing with the Bible, the 
didactic essay, the impassionel appeal. These are results, 
not causes. Education, religion, and culture are conditions 
which must be developed, not formulas to be memorized. 
The Decalogue has no significance to a Comanche, and the 
attempt to civilize him by preaching is as senseless as would 
be the effort to change a Texas steer into a Durham by 
reading Alexander's Herd-book in the cattle-pens at \\'ichita.. 
The creature to be civilized must be elevated to a condition 
that renders civilization possible. To secure flavor in the 
grape, color in the rose, we do not go to the apothecary for 
his essences, or to the painter for his hues, but to the soul 
for its subtle chemistry. And thus the wise philanthropist 
will work from within outward, and employ those agencies 
which render necessities less exacting, appetites less urgent, 
the nerv-es more sensitive, the brain more receptive, and the 
senses and the muscles more ready ministers of an enlight- 
ened will. Man cannot become learned, refined, and tolerant 
w^hile every energy of body and soul is consumed in the task 
of wresting a bare sustenance from a penurious soil; neither 
can woman become elegant and accomplished when every 
hour of every day in every year is spent over the wash tub 
and the frying-pan. There must be leisure, competence, and 
repose, and these can only be attained where the results of 
labor are abundant and secure. 

A more uninviting field for the utilitarian cannot be imag- 
ined than one of the benighted border counties of Missouri, 
where climate, products, labor, and tradition have conspired 
to develop a race of hard-visaged and forbidding ruffians,, 
exhibiting a grotesque medley of all the vices of civilization 



Blue Grass. 107 

unaccompanied even by the negative virtues of barbarism. 
To these fallen angels villainy is an amusement, crime a recre- 
ation, murder a pastime. They pursue from purpose every 
object that should be shunned by instinct. To the ignorance 
of the Indian they add the ferocity of the wolf, the venom 
of the adder, the cowardice of the slave. The contemplation 
of their deeds would convince the optimist that any system 
of morals would be imperfect that did not include a hell of 
the largest dimensions. Their continued existence is a stand- 
ing reproach to the New Testament, to the doctrines of every 
apostle, to the creed of every church. 

But even this degradation, unspeakable as it is, arises large- 
ly from material causes, and is susceptible of relief. In the 
moral pharmacy there is an antidote. 

The salutary panacea is Blue Grass. 

This is the healing catholicon, the strengthening plaster^ 
the verdant cataplasm, efficient alike in the Materia Medica 
of Nature and of morals. 

Seed the country down to blue grass and the reformation 
would begin. Such a change must be gradual. One gen- 
eration would not witness it, but three would see it accom- 
plished. The first symptom would be an undefined uneasi- 
ness along the creeks, in the rotten eruption of cottonwood 
hovels near the grist-mill and the blacksmith's shop at the 
fork of the roads, followed by a "toting" of plunder into the 
"bow-dark" wagon and an exodus for "out West." A sore- 
backed mule geared to a spavined sorrel, or a dwarfish yoke 
of stunted steers, drag the creaking wain along the muddy 
roads, accelerated by the long-drawn "Whoo-hoop-a-Haw-aw- 
aw!" of "Dad" in butternut-colored homespun, as he walks 
beside, cracking a black-snake with a detonation like a Der- 



io8 John James Ingalls. 

ringer. "Mam" and half a score of rat-faced children peer 
from the chaos within. A rough coop of chickens, a split- 
bottom "cheer,." and a rusty joint of pipe depend from the 
rear, as the dismal procession moves westward, and is lost 
in the confused obscurity of the extreme frontier. Some, 
too poor or too timid to emigrate, would remain behind, 
contenting themselves with a sullen revolt against the census, 
the alphabet, the multiplication table, and the penitentiary. 
Dwelling upon the memory of past felonies, which the hang- 
man prevents them from repeating, they clasp hands across 
the bloodv chasm. But the aspect of Nature and society 
would gradually change — fields widen, forests increase; fences 
are straightened, dwellings painted, schools established. It 
is no longer disreputable to know how to read in words of 
one svllable, and to spell one's name. The knowledge of 
the use of soap imperceptibly extends. The hair, which 
was wont to hang upon the shoulders, is shorn as high as 
the ears. The women no longer ride the old roan "mar," 
smoking a cob-pipe, with a blue cotton sun-bonnet cocked 
over the left eye, but assume the garb of the milliner, and 
come to the store with their eggs and butter in a Jackson 
wagon. Pistols are laid aside. Oaths and quarrels are less 
frequent. Drunkenness is not so general, and the indis- 
criminate use of illicit whisky partially yields to the peaceful 
lager and the cheering wine, although in his festive hours 
the true son of the soil cannot forbear to occasionally kill a 
teacher, burn a school-house, or flay a negro, by way of face- 
tious recreation. The second generation would probably dis- 
card butternut and buttermilk, and adopt the diet and habit 
of the lower classes in New England. The third might not be 



Blue Grass. 109 

distinguishable, without close inspection, from the average 
American gentleman. 

Kansas has no such moral obstacles to surmount, no such 
degradation to overcome. Her career commenced upon a 
high grade, and her course has been constantly upward; but 
it cannot be indefinitely continued on prairie grass. This 
will nourish mustangs, antelope, Texas cattle, but not thor- 
oughbreds. It is the product of an uncultured soil, alter- 
nately burned with drought, drenched with sudden showers, 
and frozen with the rigors of savage winters. Already it is 
deteriorating under influences that should be favorable to 
its improvement. Armies of rank weeds have invaded its 
domain in the neighborhood of our chief cities, and are en- 
croaching upon its solitudes. If we would have prosperity 
commensurate with our opportunities, we must look to Blue 
Grass. It will raise the temperature, increase the rainfall, 
improve the climate, develop a higher fauna and flora, and 
consequently a loftier attendant civilization. 

Every portion of our country possesses its own character- 
istics, as specific as those of different nations. The thrift 
and industry of New England, the haughty indolence of the 
South, the volcanic energy of the West, the wild life of 
the mining regions of the Rocky Mountains and California — 
these are not only ideas that are recognized, but they have 
their types and representatives in literature and art. Boston 
and New York are not more unlike than Chicago and St. 
Louis, and Denver and San Francisco resemble Paris as much 
as any of their American sister cities. They are all illustra- 
tions of the law that human character and conduct depend 
upon physical and material conditions. 



no John James Ingalls. 

The typical Kansan has not yet appeared. Our population 
is composed of more alien and conflicting elements than were 
■ever assembled under one political organization, each mature, 
each stimulated to abnormal activity. It is not yet fused 
and welded into a homogeneous mass, and we must therefore 
consult the oracles of analogy to ascertain in what garb 
our coming man will arrive. His lineaments and outline will 
be controlled by the abode we fashion and the food we prepare 
for him when he comes. 

Though our State is embryonic and fa?tal at present, it 
is not difficult to perceive certain distinctive features indig- 
enous to our limits. The social order is anomalous. Our 
politics have been exceptional, violent, personal, con\ulsive. 
The appetite of the community demands the stimulus of 
revolution. It is not content with average results in morals. 
It hungers for excitement. Its favorite apostles and proph- 
ets have been the howling dervishes of statesmanship and 
religion. Every new theory seeks Kansas as its tentative 
point, sure of partisans and disciples. Our life is intense in 
every expression. We pass instantaneously from tremendous 
energy to the most inert and sluggish torpor. There is no 
golden mean. We act first and think afterwards. These idio- 
syncrasies are rapidly becoming typical, and unless modified 
by the general introduction of Blue Grass, may be rendered 
permanent. Nature is inconstant and moulds us to her vary- 
ing moods. 

Kansas is all antithesis. It is the land of extremes. It 
is the hottest, coldest, dryest, wettest, thickest, thinnest coun- 
try of the world. The stranger who crossed our borders for 
the first time at Wyandotte and traveled by rail to White 
Cloud would with consternation contrast that uninterrupted 



Blue Grass. i i i 

■Sierra of rugose and oak-clad crags with the placid prairies 
of his imagination. Let him ride along the spine of any of 
those lateral "divides" or water-sheds whose 

"Level leagues forsaken lie, 
A grassy waste, extending to the sky," 

and he would be oppressed by the same melancholy monotony 
which broods over those who pursue the receding horizon 
■over the fluctuating plains of the sea. And let his discur- 
sion be whither it would, if he listened to the voice of experi- 
ence, he would not start upon his pilgrimage at any season 
of the year without an overcoat, a fan, a lightning-rod, and 
an umbrella. 

The new-comer, alarmed by the traditions of "the drought 
of '60," when, in the language of one of the varnished rhet- 
oricians of that epoch, "acorns were used for food, and the 
bark of trees for clothing," views with terror the long suc- 
•cession of dazzling early summer days; days without clouds 
and nights without dew; days when the effulgent sun floods 
the dome with fierce and blinding radiance ; days of glittering 
leaves and burnished blades of serried ranks of corn; days 
when the transparent air, purged of all earthly exhalation 
and alloy, seems like a pure powerful lens, revealing a remoter 
horizon and a profounder sky. 

But his apprehensions are relieved by the unheralded 
appearance of a cloud no bigger than a man's hand, in the 
northwest. A huge bulk of purple and ebony vapor, pre- 
ceded by a surging wave of pallid smoke, blots out the skv. 
Birds and insects disappear, and cattle abruptly stand agazed. 
An appalling silence, an ominous darkness, fill the atmos- 
phere. A continuous roll of muflled thunder, increasing in vol- 



112 John James Ingalls. 

ume, shakes the solid earth. The air suddenly grows chill 
and smells like an unused cellar. A fume of yellow dust 
conceals the base of the meteor. The jagged scimitar of the 
lightning, drawn from its cloudy scabbard, is brandished for 
a terrible instant in the abyss, and thrust into the affrighted 
city, with a crash as if the rafters of the world had fallen. 
The wind, hitherto concealed, leaps from its ambush and 
lashes the earth with scourges of rain. The broken cisterns 
of the clouds can hold no water, and rivers run in the atmos- 
phere. Dry ravines become turbid torrents, bearing cargoes 
of drift and rubbish on their swift descent. Confusion and 
chaos hold undisputed sway. In a moment the turmoil ceases. 
A gray veil of rain stands like a wall of granite in the eastern 
sky. The trailing banners of the storm hang from the frail 
bastions. The routed squadrons of mist, gray on violet, ter- 
rified fugitives, precipitately fly beneath the triumphal arch 
of a rainbow whose airy and insubstantial glory dies with the 
dying sun. 

For days the phenomenon is repeated. A\'ater oozes from 
the air. The strands of rain are woven with the inconstant 
sunbeam. Reeds and sedges grow in the fields, and all nature 
tends to fins, web-feet, and amphibiousness. 

Oppressed by the sedate monotony of the horizon, and 
tortured by the alternating hopes and fears which such a 
climate excites, the prairie-dweller becomes sombre and grave 
in his conversation and demeanor. Upon that illimitable 
expanse, and beneath that silent and cloudless sky, mirth 
and levity are impossible. Meditation becomes habitual. 
Fortitude and persistence succumb under the careless hus- 
bandry induced b}' the generous soil. The forests, ledges, 
and elevations which serve to identify other localities and 



Blue Grass. 113 

make them conspicuous are wanting here. Nature furnishes 
farms ready-made, like clothing in a slop-shop, and, as we 
relinquish without pain what we acquire without toil, the den- 
izen has no local attachments, and daunted by slight obstacles, 
or discontented by trivial discomforts, becomes migratory and 
follows the coyote and the bison. The pure stimulus of the 
air brings his nerves into unnatural sensitiveness and activity. 
His few diseases are brief and fatal. Rapid evaporation ab- 
sorbs the juices of his body, and he grows cachectic. Hospi- 
tality is formal. Life assumes its most serious aspect. In 
religion he is austere ; in debauchery, violent and excessive, but 
irregular. 

The thoughtful observer cannot fail to conclude that Kan- 
sas is to be the theatre of some extraordinary development in 
the future. Our history, soil, climate, and population have 
all been exceptional, and thev all point to an anomalous des- 
tiny. Our position is focal. Energy accumulates here. Our 
material advancement indicates a concentration of force, such 
as no State in its infancy has ever witnessed. Every citizen 
is impressed with the belief that he has a^special mission to 
perform. Every immigrant immediately catches the contagion 
and sleeps no more. He rushes to the frontier, stakes out a 
town without an inhabitant, builds a hotel without a guest, 
starts a newspaper without a subscriber, organizes railroad 
companies for direct connections with New York, San Fran- 
cisco, Hudson's Bay, and the Gulf of Mexico. When two or 
three are gathered together, they vote a million dollars of 10 
per cent bonds, payable in London, and before the prairie-dogs 
have had time to secure a new location, the bonds are sold, loco- 
motives are heard screaming in the distance, a strange popula- 
tion assembles from the four quarters of the globe, and an impas- 



114 John James Ingalls. 

sioned orator rises in the next State convention and demands 
the nomination of the Honorable Ajax Agamemnon of Mara- 
thon, to represent that ancient constituency in the halls of the 
national Congress. In a year, or a month it may be, the excite- 
ment subsides, corner lots can be bought for less than the price 
of quarter-sections, jimson- weeds start up in the streets, second- 
hand clothing men purchase the improvements for a tenth of 
their cost, and the volcano breaks out in some other part of 
the State. 

The names of dead Kansas newspapers outnumber the liv- 
ing; her acts of incorporation for forgotten cities, towns, rail- 
roads, ferries, colleges, cemeteries, banks, fill ponderous vol- 
umes ; the money that has been squandered in these chimerical 
schemes would build the Capitol of polished marble and cover 
its dome with beaten gold. 

But, notwithstanding this random and spasmodic activity, 
our solid progress has been without parallel. No community 
in the world can show a corresponding advancement in the 
same time and under similar circumstances. Guided by reflec- 
tion, directed by prudence, controlled by calm reason, upon 
what higher eminence these intense forces might have placed 
us can hardly be conjectured. But such a career, however 
fortunate it might have been, our physical surroundings have 
rendered impossible. The sudden release of the accumulated 
energy so long imprisoned in the useless soil, the prodigious 
store of electricity in the atmosphere, and the resentment 
which Nature always exhibits at the invasion of her soli- 
tudes, all contributed to induce a social disorder as intem- 
perate as their own. But an improvement in our physical 
conditions is already perceptible. The introduction of the 
metals in domestic and agricultural implements, jewelry, rail- 



Blue Grass. 115 

roads, and telegraphs has, to a great extent, restored the 
equilibrium, and, by constantly conducting electricity to the 
earth, prevents local congestion and a recurrence of the tem- 
pests and tornadoes of the early days. The rains which 
were wont to run from the trampled pavement of the sod 
suddenly into the streams, are now absorbed into the cul- 
tivated soil, and gradually restored to the air by solar evap- 
oration, making the alternation of the seasons less violent, 
and continued droughts less probable. Under these benign 
influences, prairie grass is disappearing. The various breeds 
of cattle, hogs, and horses are improving. The culture of 
orchards and vineyards yields more certain returns. A "rich- 
er, healthier, and more varied diet is replacing the side- 
meat and corn-pone of antiquity. Blue grass is marching 
into the bowels of the land without impediment. Its per- 
ennial verdure already clothes the bluffs and uplands along 
the streams, its spongy sward retaining the moisture of the 
earth, preventing the annual scarifications by fire, promot- 
ing the growth of forests, and elevating the nature of man. 

Supplementing this material improvement is an evident 
advance in manners and morals. The little log school-house 
is replaced by magnificent structures furnished with every 
educational appliance. Churches multiply. The commercial 
element has disappeared from politics. The intellectual stand- 
ard of the press has advanced, and with the general diffusion 
of blue grass, we may reasonably anticipate a career of unex- 
ampled and enduring prosperity. 

The drama has opened with a stately procession of his- 
toric events. No ancient issues confuse the theme. No bu- 
ried nations sleep in the untainted soil, vexing the present 
with their phantoms, retarding progress with the burden 



ii6 John James Ingalls. 

of their outworn creeds, depressing enthusiasm by the silent 
reproof of their mighty achievements. Heirs of the greatest 
results of time, we are emancipated from all allegiance to 
the past. Unencumbered by precedents, we stand in the 
vestibule of a future which is destined to disclose upon this 
arena time's noblest offspring — the perfected flower of Amer- 
ican manhood. 



CATFISH ARISTOCRACY. 



To the physical geographer, Kansas presents an elevated, 
treeless plateau, rising with imperceptible gradation west- 
ward toward the base of the Rocky Mountains. Its area 
is quadrangular, with regular outlines, except upon that por- 
tion of its eastern boundary which conforms to the sinuosi- 
ties of the Missouri. 

The withdrawal of the ocean beneath which this terri- 
tory was originally submerged, and the drainage cf the rains 
and melting snows that subsequently fell upon its surface, 
practicallv bisected this parallelogram with a central water- 
course known to cheap politicians as the "Valley of the Kaw," 
which, with its numerous affluents from either side, resem- 
bles the spinal cord of the vertebrate, with its lateral nerves 
branching fiom the cervix at \\yandotte to the cocc}^^ or os 
sacrum in Colorado. 

Commencing at the general level of the upland, these trib- 
utaries w ear deeper and wider channels through the friable and 
incoherent soil. Their gathered volume, with sluggish moment- 
um, crawls reluctantly eastward, forming the Kansas River, 
one of the most important affluents of the Missouri. These 
streams may be properly characterized as amphibious, or com- 
posed equally of land and water. They constitute an anomaly 
in Nature, being too shallow for navigation, too dense for a 
constant beverage, and too fluid for culture. If the catfish 



117 



iiS John James Ingalls. 

were permanently expelled, and proper attention given to sub- 
soil plowing and irrigation in dry seasons, thev would eventu- 
ally become the garden -spots of the world. This is an appro- 
priate field for legislative action, and Congress should be im- 
mediately memorialized upon the subject. 

During our Territorial history, a company was incorporated 
to render the Kaw navigable, by cutting a conduit from the 
Platte to the headwaters of the Republican, and thus uniting 
the two rivers. The resolute opposition of the farmers of 
Nebraska, who would have been deprived of stock-water bv 
the success of the scheme, prevented the consummation of 
this great enterprise, which would only have been equalled bv 
the Suez Canal in its effects upon the commerce of the world. 
But the present Legislature is so nmch occupied in discussing 
the one-term principle, in discovering who received the most 
money for his vote at the election of the last senator, and in 
passing resolutions to adjourn, that nothing can be expected 
upon the irrigation proposition before another session. 

The outer limits of these valleys are the bluffs, whose sum- 
mits were the original shores of the rivers, when their broad, 
shallow currents had a scarcely perceptible motion toward the 
Gulf of Mexico. As the attrition has worn deeper and deeper 
channels, the lateral drainage has cut narrow and precipitous 
defiles through the bluft's, giving them an apparent isolation, 
and sculpturing them into rugged and picturesque outlines, 
waiting only to be crowned with castles to become as romantic 
as the banks of the Rhine. The increased moisture of soil and 
atmosphere preventing the annual devastation by fire, for- 
ests of oak, hickory, and other deciduous trees have gradu- 
ally clothed the slopes and ravines of the hills with their grace- 
ful garniture, and extended a short distance into the interior. 



Catfish Aristocracy. 119 

The length of time required for the accompHshment of these 
results is matter of surmise and conjecture. Inasmuch as the 
"waters of the Missouri now flow in a bed at least one hundred 
and fifty feet lower than the adjacent level of the prairie, and 
have cut through a stratum of solid limestone not less than 
fifteen feet thick in their descent, it is probable that the proc- 
ess must have commenced previous to the passage of the 
Nebraska Bill in 1854, and possibly prior to the affair in the 
Garden of Eden. 

The degradation of the hills and the detritus washed down 
from the higher regions is suspended in the sordid wave, and 
deposited along the margins of the streams at the base of the 
bluffs, in greater or lesser crescents of muddy sand, whereso- 
ever the capricious current permits a momentary delay. Born 
of a snag, a wreck, an adverse gale, a sunken floater, anvthing 
that can afford brief lodgement for accumulation, these accre- 
tions may dissolve and vanish with the next "rise," or they 
may mysteriously elevate themselves above the level of the 
water, give root to wind-sown willows, cottonwoods, elms, and 
svcamores, an anonymous growth of feculent herbage and fes- 
tering, crawling weeds, but never a bright blade of wholesome 
grass, a lovely bud or flower. 

Malarious brakes and jungles suddenly exhale from the 
black soil, in whose loathsome recesses the pools of pure 
rain change by some horrible alchemy into green ooze and 
bubblv slime, breeding reptiles and vermin that creep and fly, 
infecting earth and air with their venom, fatal alike to action 
and repose. Gigantic parasites smother and strangle the 
huge trunks they embrace, turning them into massive col- 
umns of verdure, changing into a crimson like that of blood 
when smitten bv the frosts of October. Pendulous, leafless 



I20 John James Ingalls. 

vines dismally sway from the loftiest trees like gallows with- 
out their tenants. Deadly vapors, and snaky, revolting odors, 
begotten of decav, brood in the perpetual gloom. 

If not too soon undermined by the insidious chute gnaw- 
ing at its foundation of quaking quicksands, this foul alluvion 
becomes subject to local government, and, under a mistaken 
idea that it is a component part of this sure and firm-set earth, 
is surveyed and taxed. Its useless forests are deadened, and 
the ruined boles stand like grizzly phantoms in the waste. A 
zig-zag pen of rotten rails creeps round a hovel of decayed logs 
with mud-daubed interstices that seems to spring like a conge- 
nial exhalation from the ground. In the uncouth but appro- 
priate phraseology of its denizens, it is "cleared bottom," and 
has become the abode of the catfish aristocrat. It was amid 
such surroundings that I first met Shang, the Grand Duke of 
this order of nobility. Thus he had always lived; thus his 
ancestors, if he had any ; and thus he and his successsors, heirs, 
and assigns will continue to live till education, religion, and 
development shall render him and his congeners as impossi- 
ble as the monsters that tore each other in the period of the 
Jurassic group. 

The foes of Darwin are accustomed to assail the deductions 
of that impolite philosopher by the assertion that beings are 
nowhere found in transit from type to type, either among the 
higher or lower orders of existence. In their efforts to escape 
the irresistible conclusion that their own immediate ancestors 
were monkeys or donkeys, they affirm with suspicious plaus- 
ibility that if this process of evolution were constantly pro- 
ceeding, we should somewhere find a fish with feathers, a bird 
with fins, a horse with horns, or a man with unpared claws and 
a prehensile tail. 



Catfish Aristocracy. i2i 

These high-prairie logicians who thus attempt to salve 
their wounded vanity are possibly honest, but their horizon 
is narrow. They illustrate the errors that arise from imper- 
fect generalization, based upon insufficient data. Reflection 
should convince them that they had seen hogs on the bench, 
asses in the pulpit, and bores in every relation in life; and if 
they would descend from their altitudes to the dwellers along 
the creeks and upon the bottoms, we should hear no more of 
this sophistical argument. In Shang they would find that 
long-lost brother, "the connecting link between man and the 
gorilla." 

They would also discover additional proof of another sig- 
nificant fact, interesting not less in physics than in morals, but 
indisputable in both, that vice, degradation, infamy, ignor- 
ance — all the conditions that tend to corrupt and debase man- 
kind — by some inexorable law of their being, do most luxuri- 
antly thrive and flourish on low and level lands, the shores 
of rivers, and the margins of gulfs and lakes and bays. Sin 
gravitates downward, not spiritually alone, but materially also. 
Nature abhors it. , She throws the harlot and the drunkard in 
the gutter. She moves her human trash, like her other gar- 
bage, constantly lower and lower, till it is consumed in central 
fires or purged in purifying seas. 

Whatev^er is virtuous and lofty in thought, sentiment, 
and purpose, we irresistibly associate with elevated regions: 
mountain summits cleaving the zenith, high table-lands, with 
clear streams and glittering atmosphere. 

"What pleasure dwells in height, the shepherd sang, 
In height and cold, the splendor of the hills!" 

The patriotism of mountaineers, their love of home, integ- 
rity, religion, fortitude, are proverbial. The history of Switz- 



122 John James Ixgalls. 

erland and the national characteristics of its inhabitants, the 
hard)' virtues of the farmers of New England and the peas- 
antry of Northern Europe, are in vivid contrast with the name- 
less degradation of the emasculated myriads that swarm upon 
the alluvions of the Ganges, the Missouri, and the Nile. 

The same distinction is perceptible within the narrow range 
of isolated communities. Business, traffic, manufactures, what- 
ever enslaves man and drags him down to the level of his 
most clamorous necessities, seek low grades; while the church, 
the school, the home, crown the eminences that rise above the 
dust and smoke of this dim spot which men call earth. 

The hell of theology is in a bottomless pit, a profound abyss; 
while the evangelical heaven is depicted to the popular fancy 
as a walled and castellated city, leaning over whose comfort- 
able battlements the celestial burghers contemplate, with 
complacent security, the elaborate contortions of their less- 
favored brethren in fuliginous realms below. 

The Esquimaux could not exist at the equator, nor the 
Hindoo at the pole. No man of genius or power in letters, 
arts, or arms has ever been born outside of a narrow zone of 
mean annual temperature. Whether soil, climate, and diet 
produce their own peculiar species of the human animal, or 
whether, being created, he seeks the conditions to which he is 
specially adapted, is a matter of doubt, but the fact admits of 
no question. The most cursory observer cannot fail to notice 
the difference, even in the same township, county, or State, 
between the farmers who live in bottoms and those who culti- 
vate the prairie; between communities that congregate un- 
der the bluffs and those that dwell upon high and airy sites; 
between the catfish aristocrat and the Yankee. Perhaps the 
most marked and ineradicable outward distinction is the man- 



Catfish Aristocracy. 123 

ner in which they respond to a question imperfectly under- 
stood. The one, squirting a gourdful of tobacco juice into the 
jimson- weeds, with a prolonged, rising inflection, drawls out, 
"Whi-i-i-ich?" The other stops whittling, or lays down The 
Kansas Magazine, and jerks out, "Haouw?" 

Beware of the creature that says "Which?" and shun the 
vicinage wherein he dwells! He builds no school-house. He 
erects no church. To his morals the Sabbath is unknown. To 
his intellect the alphabet is superfluous. His premises have 
neither barn, nor cellar, nor well. His crop of corn stands un- 
gathered in the field. He "packs" water half a mile from the 
nearest branch or spring. His perennial diet is hog, smoked 
and salted in the summer, and fresh at "killin' time." He 
delights in cracklins and spare-ribs. Gnashing his tusks upon 
the impenetrable mail of his corn-dodger, he sighs for the time 
of "roas'n-eers." He has a weakness for "cowcumbers" and 
" watermel'ns" ; but when he soars above the gross needs of his 
common nature and strives to prepare a feast that shall rival 
the banquets of Liicullus, he spreads his festive cottonwood 
with catfish and pawpaws. 

From such a protoplasm, or physical basis of life, proceeds 
an animal, bifid, long-haired, unaccustomed to the use of soap, 
without conscience or right reason, gregarious upon bottom 
lands, where they swarm with unimaginable fecundity. In 
time of peace they unanimously vote the Democratic ticket. 
During the war they became guerrillas and bushwhackers un- 
der Price, Anderson, and Quantrell ; assassins ; thugs ; poisoners 
of wells ; murderers of captive women and children ; sackers of 
defenseless towns; house-burners; horse-thieves; perpetrators 
of atrocities that would make the blood of Sepoys run cold. 



124 John James Ixgalls. 

The catfish aristocrat is pre-eminently the saloon-builder. 
Past generations and perished races of men have defied obliv- 
ion by the enduring structures which pride, sorrow, or religion 
have reared to perpetuate the virtues of the living or the mem- 
ory of the dead. Ghizeh has its pyramids; Petra its temples; 
the Middle Ages their cathedrals; Central America its ruins; 
but Pike and Posey have their saloons, where the patrician of 
the bottom assembles with his peers. Gathered around a 
rusty stove choked with soggy driftwood, he drinks sod-corn 
from a tin cup, plays "old sledge" upon the head of an empty 
keg, and reels home at nightfall, yelling through the timber, 
to his squalid cabin. 

A score of lean, hungry curs pour in a canine cataract over 
the worm-fence by the horse-block as their master approaches, 
baying deep-mouthed welcome, filling the chambers of the for- 
ests with hoarse reverberations, mingled with an explosion of 
oaths and frantic imprecations. Snoring the night awav in 
drunken slumber under a heap of gray blankets, he crawls into 
his muddy jeans at sun-up, takes a gurgling drink from a flat 
black bottle stoppered with a cob, goes to the log-pile bv the 
front door, and with a dull ax slabs off an armful of green cotton- 
wood to make a fire for breakfast, which consists of the inevit- 
able "meat and bread" and a decoction of coffee burned to 
charcoal and drank without milk or sugar. Another pull at 
the bottle, a few grains of quinine if it is "ager" day, a "chav/" 
of navy, and the repast is finished. The sweet delights of home 
have been enjoyed, and the spiritual creature goes forth, invig- 
orated for the struggle of life, to repeat the exploits of every 
vesterday of his existence. 

I have heretofore alluded to Shang as the typical grandee 
of this ichthyological peerage. Whence he derived the appel- 



Catfish Aristocracy. 125 

lation by which he was uniformly known, I could never satis- 
factorily ascertain. Whether it was his ancestral 'title, or 
merely a playful pseudonym bestowed upon him by some famil- 
iar friend in affection's most endearing hour, was never dis- 
■closed. Of his birth, his parentage, his antecedents, it were 
equally vain to inquire. He was unintentionally begotten in 
a concupiscence as idle and thoughtless as that of dogs or flies 
or swine. It has been surmised that he was evolved from the 
minor consciousness of his own squalor, but this must always 
remain a matter of conjecture. 

To the most minute observer, his age was a question of the 
gravest doubt. He might have been thirty, he might have 
been a century, with no violation of the probabilities. His 
hair was a sandy sorrel, something like a Rembrandt interior, 
and strayed around his freckled scalp like the top-layer of a 
hayrick in a tornado. His eyes were two ulcers half filled 
with pale-blue starch. A thin, sharp nose projected above a 
lipless mouth that seemed always upon the point of breaking 
into the most grievous lamentations, and never opened save 
to take whisky and tobacco in and let oaths and saliva out. 
A long, slender neck, yellow and wrinkled after the manner of 
a lizard's belly, bore this dome of thought upon its summit, 
itself projecting from a miscellaneous assortment of gents' 
furnishing goods, which covered a frame of unearthlv longi- 
tude and unspeakable emaciation. Thorns and thongs sup- 
plied the place of buttons upon the costume of this Brummel 
of the bottom, coarsely patched beyond recognition of the 
original fabric. The coat had been constructed for a giant, 
the pants for a pigmy. They were too long in the waist and 
too short in the leg, and flapped loosely around his shrunk 
shanks high above the point where his fearful feet were par- 



126 John James Ingalls. 

tially concealed by mismated shoes that permitted his great 
toes to peer from their gaping integuments, like the heads 
of two snakes of a novel species and uncommon fetor. This 
princely phenomenon was topped with a hat that had neither 
band nor brim nor crown; 

"If that could shape be called wh'ch shape had none." 

His voice was high, shrill, and querulous, and his manner 
an odd mixture of fawning servility and apprehensive eflfront- 
erv at the sight of a "damned Yankee Abolitionist," whom he 
hated and feared next to a negro who was not a slave. 

He was a private in that noble army of chivalry which 
marched to Kansas to fight the Puritan idea, and the ebbing 
tide left him stranded upon the Missouri bottom. He found a 
community with no inheritance of transmitted force from which 
to rear the institutions of her new societv. The liberal cli- 
mate and generous soil had nurtured a luxuriant vegetation, 
pastured by untamed herds, that were pursued by men more 
savage than the beasts they slew. These were her only her- 
itage, except the traditions of religion, education, and freedom 
that animated the hearts of her pioneers. The useless mag- 
nificence of the prairie was unvexed by a furrow. Spring 
knew no seedtime, autumn no harvest, save of the wild store 
that Nature garners for beast and bird. 

It is appalling to reflect what the condition of Kansas would 
have been to-day had its destiny been left in the hands of 
Shang and those of his associates who first did its voting and 
attempted to frame its institutions. A few hundred mush- 
eating chawbacons, her only population, would still have been 
chasing their razor-backed hogs through the thickets of black- 
jack, and jugging for catfish in the chutes of the Missouri and 
the Kaw. How great the change has been is attested by her 



Catfish Aristocracy. 127 

five hundred thousand people hving in Christian homes and 
pursuing the arts of peace ; by her two thousand miles of rail- 
road in successful operation ; b>- her granaries that would feed 
the world; by the general prevalence of law and order amid 
great temptations to violence and crime. 

Much of this prosperity is due to the favorable conditions 
in which we are placed, but \'astly more to the moral causes 
which underlie our social and moral structure. Kansas is the 
child of Plymouth Rock. It was once fashionable to sneer at 
this historic boulder, but it is the most impressive spot on the 
face of the earth, save the summit of Calvary. The Puritan 
idea rules the world. Like Aaron's rod, when it appears it 
swallows up all others. Shang and his friends would have 
starv^ed to death the first season on the sterile hills of New 
England ; but the Puritan manured the stingy soil with ideas, 
and it has produced a crop that is better than corn, or oil, 
or wine. Ideas are more profitable than hogs or beeves. 
Rich Virginia grows poor, and poor Massachusetts rich, be- 
because the Cavalier thought for the one, and the Roundhead 
for the other. The Puritan idea is aggressive. It has an 
unconquerable vitality. Wheresoever it is planted it becomes 
a majority. A little of its leaven leavens the whole lump. 
Assailed, it grows strong; wounded, it revives; buried, it be- 
comes the angel of its own resurrection. 

To the invincible potency of this idea much of the mar- 
velous growth of Kansas is attributable. It is, on the whole, 
doubtful whether there is or has ever been, in this country, 
any idea but the Puritan. Shang never thinks. He vege- 
tates; he exists. He toils on horseback through the mud 
with his sack of meal from grist-mill to grocery. The Puri- 
tan builds a railroad, and meditates new projects as he trav- 



128 John James Ingai,i,s. 

els in his palace car from ocean to ocean. Wheresoever 
he pauses in his triumphal career, the telegraph, the print- 
ing-press, the sewing-machine, and the innumerable achieve- 
ments of his genius signalize his beneficent presence, render 
the burdens of life less degrading, and ennoble the soul by 
the consciousness of its powers to bless the race. 



REGIS LOISEL. 
1799 — 1804. 



Block Seventeen, South Atchison, had merely a poten- 
tial existence in those ancient days. That oblong rectangle, 
fronting upon a postliininous Third Street, was unappar- 
ent among the hazels and chincapin oaks which feathered 
the rounded summit of the bold projecting headland, visi- 
ble to the keen eyes of Regis Loisel for leagues along the 
hrosid, deep, solitary valley; dimly descried through autumn's 
melancholy haze and the azure mist of April, southward 
from the porphyry bluffs, whose receding vistas converge 
to the horizon above the columnar cottonwoods of Cow Island 
Bottom, and northward from Blacksnake's barren tumuli of 
tawny sand. 

S Street was not. White Clay crawled sluggishly on 
its useless errand through muddy ooze, and idly emptied 
its turbid urn. Sumner, Port William, and lyeavenworth had 
not disturbed the wilderness with the decline and fall of their 
ineffectual dreams of fortune and empire. The great railroad 
center was an ovum in the unimpregnated womb of the future 
when Regis Toisel first moored his bateaux and lighted his 
camp-fire beneath a rugged elm at the foot of Block Seven- 
teen, in 1799: the central point in the arc of the "Grand 
Detour," or "Great Western Bend of the Missouri." 

George the Third was King of England, France was a 
republic. Paul the First was Emperor of Russia. vSelim the 



129 



130 John James Ingalls. 

Third was Sultan of the Eastern Empire. John Adams was 
the imperious President of a Federal Union, comprising six- 
teen States, Kentucky and Tennessee being the outposts and 
extreme western frontier. The first Territorial Legislature of 
Ohio had just met at the huddle of log huts called Cincinnati. 
Kansas was a Spanish province imder the dominion of Charles 
the Fourth and Manuel Godoy, Duke of Alcudia and Prince 
of the Peace. 

The haughty hidalgo with sable drooping plume and sub- 
tle rapier was the predecessor of the border ruffian, the Jay- 
hawker, and the bullwhacker, upon the banks of the Mis- 
souri. To his successors he bequeathed an unsubstantial 
heritage, and laid deep in the soil the substructure and under- 
pinning of that fragile architecture which has given to ever>- 
creek, cross-roads, and slabtown its airy chateaux en Espagnc. 
The Spanish sway in Kansas was brief and barren of results . 
The Castilian emigrants lingered by the shores of the Gulf 
and seldom penetrated far inland. They were a race of buc- 
caneers and pirates, sensual, selfish, avaricious, haunting the 
coral groups and tranquil lagoons of the tropics, alternating 
between frenzied raids for silver in the mines of Zacatecas, 
and aimless wanderings in search of the Fountain of Youth 
in the land of perpetual flowers. 

France was the owner in fee-simple of Block vSeventeen 
till 1762, though the muniments of title will be sought in 
vain among the records of the Atchison County registry of 
deeds. The real-estate abstracts of Rust & Co. contain no 
reference to this proprietorship, nor the conveyance in 1762 
to Spain, by which nation it was held till 1800, when Napo- 
leon Bonaparte acquired the fee in trust for France, and sold 
it in 1803 to the United States. 



Regis Loisel. 131 

Napoleon was not a fortunate speculator in real estate. 
He had no use for Western lands and town lots. He did not 
participate in that sublime and universal faith which believes 
that property will be higher in the spring. He closed out 
his entire interest in the Atchison town-site, together with 
all the adjacent land lying west of the Mississippi and south 
of the British Possessions, for three million dollars, which 
is at the rate of more than a hundred acres for a cent. Real 
estate in Atchison was cheap at the close of the eighteenth 
century. The Hannibal and St. Joseph extension had not 
been completed. The bridge had not been definitely located. 
Forty-eight trains were not arriving and departing daily. 
The new hotel slept in the clay-pits at the foot of the bluflfs. 
And yet it may be that Bonaparte was right. He had, per- 
chance, a premonition of the twenty-one different kinds of 
taxes and assessments that would be annuallv levied on Block 
Seventeen, and concluded that he had better sc^ll out before 
Baker was elected treasurer — in 1S72. 

For there were no taxes in that halcyon time. Larceny 
had not been legalized. Confiscation by statute, in time 
of peace, had not been invented. Ten per cent penalty and 
fifty per cent interest was the hope of the thieves in their 
most daring dreams of peculation. The avarice and cupidity 
of that primitive epoch did not demand the sanction of law, 
but were content to evade its penalties. Strange as it may 
appear, no pompous official emerged from the thickets of 
elders and pawpaws to collect wharfage of Regis Loisel as 
he tied up his fleet at the steep levee, and his motley crew 
of vovds^eurs and couretirs de hois scramblefl up the crumbling 
bank, weary with rowing, cordelling, and poling against the 
yellow current of the capricious and turbid stream. 



132 JoHx Ja.mks Ixgalls. 

Contrasted with Jamestown and Plymouth, this was not 
many years ago: but all antiquity is comparative. The day 
before we were born is older than Adam. To niuihood 
the recollections of infancy recede into a past as remote as 
Noah. To those whose memories reflect the ruined imaores 
of Quindaro and Lecompton, earth has no i)rofounder soli- 
tudes, time no more ancient epoch, then the Kansas of Regis 
Loisel in seventeen hundred and ninety-nine. And yet suc- 
cessive emigrations had even then overflowed and subsided 
from these trancjuil plains, leaving no memorials that time 
has not obliterated. The Aztec, the Mound Builder, the sav- 
age, with their mysterious industries, their unknown avoca- 
tions, their rude commerce, the trepidations of their wars, 
the awful sacrifices of their religions, the inexorable sanc- 
tions of their laws, have vanished like the smoke of their 
altars and the blood of their victims. The temple, the devo- 
tee, and the god have sunk into conunon oblivion. Day was 
as night save for the alternations of sun and clouds. The 
earth grew green and turned white again, with nothing to 
mark the succession of the unchanging years. 

Historv does not record whether such meditations occurred 
to Regis Loisel. Thoughts of Helene Chauvin may have 
floated in liis ambitious and scheming brain as he recalled 
the desolate wastes of cottonwood and sand that intervened 
between the "Grand Detour" and the little French hamlet 
where she dwelt, or the wear>- voyage of months to the north- 
ward before he could return. Rut he was no idle dreamer 
on a sentimental journey, hi search of objects over which 
his sensibilities could expand. The past had no charm for 
him. He felt the sublime agitations of youth. Its proph- 
ecies of the future stirred him like a passion. 



Regis Loisel. 133 

The sullen s:ra\' bars of the river were vocal with sonor- 
ous flocks of brant, halting for a night on their prodigious 
emigrations from the icebergs to the palms. Triangles of 
wild geese harrowed the blue fields of the sky. Regiments 
of pelicans performed their mysterious e\olutions high in 
air — now white, now black, as their wings or their breasts 
were turned to the setting sun. The sandhill crane, trail- 
ing the ridiculous longitude of his thin stilts behind him, 
dropped his gurgling croak from aerial elevations, at which 
his outspread pinions seemed but a black mote in the ocean 
of the atmosphere. In all the circumference of the waste 
wilderness beneath him, he saw no tower or roof or spire 
upon the hills of Atchison, no cabin on the prairie, no hollow 
square cleared in the forests of Buchanan and Platte; heard 
no vibration of bells, no scream of glittering engine, no thun- 
der of rolling trains, no roar of wheels, no noise of masses 
of men like distant surf tumbling on a rocky shore ; no human 
trace along the curves of the winding river, save the thin blue 
fume that curled upward through the trees at the base of the 
bluflf from the camp-fire of Regis Loisel. 

The geographies and atlases of twenty years ago pre- 
sented this favored region to the wondering eyes of the ingen- 
uous vouth of that period as a dotted area of irregular out- 
line, labeled, "Great American Desert," in which groups of 
Holes-in-the-Day, conical lodges of pelts, epizootic buffalo, 
and wild gazelles with silvery feet were scattered in reckless 
and illogical profusion. So profound has been the ignorance 
upon this topic that it is even now the general belief that 
the pioneers of '54 and '55 entered upon an untried and track- 
less solitude. To such it may be necessary to explain the 
presence of this intruding explorer with his flotilla at the 



134 John James Ingalls. 

Atchison levee in 1799, in company with Antoine Tibeau and 
his brother Pierre. 

The connection appears remote, but it is historically ac- 
curate to say that he was here because that eminent nav- 
igator, Jacques Cartier, sailed from St. Malo in 1534, and en- 
tered the river vSt. Lawrence, taking possession of the coun- 
trv in the name of Francis I., King of France. The early 
settlers of Canada, in 1535. immediately learned the immense 
value of the furs of the animals that swarmed in the pure, 
cold lakes and streams and the lonely forests of those vast 
territories. Collecting them in great quantities, they found 
an increasing demand with every new arrival from the mother 
country, and the fabulous profits of the traffic, combined 
with the wild romance of the chase, stimulated enterprise 
and capital to the inauguration of gigantic schemes. Beads, 
liquors, and gaudy apparel were shipped from French sea- 
ports to Quebec, and thence distributed among the Indian 
tribes to induce them to pursue their congenial occupation. 
The Frenchmen, naturally adventurous and flexible, readily 
assimilated to the Indian habits, and became hunters and 
explorers. Hardy and courageous, yet mild and peaceable, 
thev penetrated remote regions with safety, and conciliated 
savage tribes by their superior address. Accompanied by 
the priests of their religion, they planted the standard of 
the cross by the flag of their country upon the forts which 
thev established in the trackless solitudes of the St. Law- 
rence and the Lakes. Gradually extending the area of their 
explorations, they crossed the continent southwesterly dur- 
ing the century following their first settlement, penetrating 
the region since known as Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois, 
descending the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico in 1682, and 



Regis Loisel. 135 

founding, in 17 18, the city of New Orleans, which became 
thenceforward the southern seaport of their commerce, out- 
ranking in importance both Mackinaw and Montreal in the 
north. 

The vast region bordering the Missouri and its great trib- 
utaries was a boundless and unexplored field for the fui- 
traders. It is now occupied by the States of Arkansas, Mis- 
souri, Iowa, western Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, and the 
Indian Territory. The fur-bearing animals had gradually re- 
ceded westward before that daring and mysterious emigration 
which subsequently vanished, leaving its history written in the 
nomenclature of the streams, peaks, passes, and plains, from 
the Yellowstone to the Gulf, from the Missouri to the Pacific. 

In 1762 the Director-General of Louisiana, Monsieur D'Ab- 
adie, granted to a company of New Orleans merchants the 
exclusive right to trade for furs with the Indians upon the 
Missouri River, under the title of "Pierre Ligueste Laclede, 
Antoine Maxan & Company." 

Laclede, the projector of the enterprise, was a mercantile 
adventurer of noble descent from Bordeaux, long domiciled 
in New Orleans, where he had fallen a victim to the volup- 
tuous charms of Madame Chouteau, the wife of a baker of 
bread and pies for the hungry, and a vendor of ale and wine 
for the thirsty villagers. Monsieur Chouteau, the baker, 
was presumably a crusty fellow, neither well bread nor in 
the flour of his youth; a dough-faced loaf-er and a pie-biter 
of the deepest dye. Be this as it may, Madame preferred 
the plume and sword of her dashing lover to the paper cap 
and rolling-pin of her liege lord, and "Ht out" in the summer 
of 1763 with the expedition for Ste. Genevieve, arriving on 
November 3d, where they went into winter quarters. After 



136 John James Ingalls. 

a careful examination of the topography of the surround- 
ing country, Laclede selected the present site of St. Louis, 
and established a trading-post February 15. 1764, erecting a 
large house and four stores on the levee. In due time he 
died, bequeathing his name to a street and a hotel in the 
city he founded. Madame Chouteau long survived liini, resid- 
ing in St. Louis till her death, leaving a numerous progeny 
of Chouteaus, and a name that smells sweet and blossoms 
in the dust. She was a woman of great strength of character 
and marvelous personal beaut v. and ruled St. Louis with des- 
potic sovereignty. 

In 1770 the village comprised forty families, protected 
from savage incursions by a small garrison. On August 11. 
1768, Captain Rion, with a detachment of troops, took pos- 
session of the town in the name of the King of Spain, under 
whose dominion it nominally remained till transferred to 
the United States in 1803; at which time it continued to be 
merely a trading-post with a few liundred inhabitants, its 
annual traffic in furs amounting to about $200,000. The 
first brick house was erected in 1S13. The first boat left its 
wharf in 1819, and as late as in 1822 it contained only about 
5,000 inhabitants. 

Here, in 1798, landed Regis Loisel, a youth of twenty, 
born near Montreal, a soldier of fortune, w^ho conceived the 
idea of extending the fur trade to the head-waters of the 
Missouri and its tributaries in the extreme northern fast- 
nesses of the Rocky Mountains. It was a bold and auda- 
cious scheme, and implied the possession of extraordinary 
powers of body and mind. The distance alone was appalling. 
Months were consumed in the transportation of stores and 
supplies by rude boats, driven against the turbulent current 



Regis Loisel. .137 

by favoring gales, or drawn by men walking along the shore, 
toiling at a rope attached to the mast-head. The naviga- 
tion was inconceivably slow and dangerous. Tribes of impla- 
cable savages resented the invasion of their domains, adding 
to the labors of the voyage the terrors of ambush from the 
imprenetrable forests that darkened the shores. 

Associated with him in the daring enterprise was Pierre 
Chouteau and Jacques Glamorgan, under the mercantile name 
of "Glamorgan, Loisel & Gompany." Ghouteau was a descend- 
ant of the beautiful bakeress of New Orleans. Glamorgan was 
a French creole from Guadaloupe, educated at Paris, whose 
dusky amours have given to St. Louis a race of laundresses 
and barbers like Shakespeare's "cuckoo-buds of yellow hue." 

In the promotion of the purposes of their commercial 
venture, Loisel ascended the river in 1 799, and established 
a trading-post on an island in the Upper Missouri, where 
he subsequently made a field and garden, and built a four- 
bastioned fort of cedar logs. This locality is in the present 
territory of Dakota, and directly in the route of the Northern 
Pacific Railroad. 

Returning to St. Louis in the development of his plans, 
the partnership being dissolved, he anticipated the policy 
of the Government by promptly applying for a land-grant 
in the following terms: 

"To Mr. Charles Dehaiilt Delassus, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Stationary Reg- 
iment of Louisiana, and Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Louisiana, &c.: 

"Sir: Regis Loisel has the honor to submit that having made consid- 
erable sacriiices in the Upper Missouri Company in aiding to the discoveries 
of Indian nations in that quarter in order to increase commerce hereafter, 
as also to inculcate to these different nations favorable sentiments towards 
the Government and have them devoted to the service of his Majesty, so as 
to be able to put a stop to the contraband trade of foreigners who, scatter- 
ing themselves among those Indians, employ all imaginable means to make 



138 John James Ingalls. 

them adopt principles contrary to the attachment they owe to the Govern- 
ment. The petitioner has also furnished with zeal, presents, in order to gain 
the friendship of those different nations for the purpose to disabuse them of 
the errors insinuated to them, and to obtain a free passage through their 
lands and a durable peace. The petitioner, intending to continue on his own 
account the commerce which his partners have abandoned in that quarter, 
hopes that you will be pleased to grant to him, for the convenience of his 
trade, permission to form an estabhshment in Upper Missouri, distant 
about four hundred leagues from this town, and which shall be situated on 
the said Missouri between the river known under the name of Riviere du 
vieux Anglais, which empties itself in the said Missouri on the right side 
of it, descending the stream, and lower down than Cedar Island and the 
river known under the name of Riviere de la Cote de Medicine, which is on 
the left side, descending the stream, and higher up than Cedar Island, 
which island is at equal distance from the two rivers above named That 
place being the most convenient for his operations, as well in the Upper as 
in the Lower Missouri, and it being indispensable to secure to himself the 
timber in an indisputable manner, he is obliged to have recourse to your 
goodness, praying that you will be pleased to grant to him a concession 
in full property for him, his heirs or assigns, for the extent of land situ- 
ated along the banks of the said Missouri, and comprised between the 
river called the Old Englishman's and the one called the Medicine Bluff, 
here above mentioqed, by the depth of one league in the interior on 
each side the Missouri, and including the island known by the name of 
Cedar Island, as also other small timbered islands. In granting his de- 
mand, he shall never cease to render thanks to your goodness. 

"Regis I.oiskl. 
"St. Louis of lUinois, March 20, 1800." 

To which ingenious petition the Governor was pleased to 

respond bv his concession, in manner following, that is sav: 

"St. Louis op IIvLINOis, March 25, 1800. 
"Whereas, It is notorious that the petitioner has made great losses 
when in the company he mentions, and as he continues his voyages of 
discoveries conformably to the desires of the Government, which are the 
cause of great expense to him, and it being for the commerce of peltries with 
the Indians necessary that forts should be constructed among these remote 
nations, as much to impress them with respect as to have places of deposit 
for the goods and other articles which merchants carry to them, and par- 
ticularly for those of the petitioner, for these reasons I do grant to him and 
to his successors the land which he solicits in the same place where he asks, 
provided it is not to the prejudice of anybody; and the said land being 



Regis Loisel. 139 

very far from this post, he is not obliged to have it surveyed at present; but 
however, he must apply to the Intendant-General in order to obtain the 
title in form from said Intendant, because to him belongs, by order of his 
Majesty, the granting of all classes of lands belonging to the royal domain. 

"Carlos Dehault Delassus." 

The tract thus secured was about fifteen miles long by- 
five miles in width, with special advantages for trade, and 
as a military post to which the trappers could resort for 
protection in winter, a depot where supplies were distributed 
and furs collected for shipment by canoes and mackinaws 
to St. Louis, on the "rise" from the melting of the moun- 
tain snows. 

Loisel prosecuted his venture with varying fortunes till 
1804, making several voyages, and opening a farm to furnish 
his garrison with vegetables and grain. In the autumn of 
this year he descended the Mississippi from St. Louis to New 
Orleans, for the purpose of engaging the assistance of cap- 
italists in a scheme to penetrate the Rocky Mountains and 
establish the fur trade in the extreme northwest upon the 
Pacific Ocean. Falling ill upon his journey, he went imme- 
diately to the house of Monsieur Joseph Perillat, where he 
became rapidly worse, and on the first of October made his 
will before a notary, who gave the following cop}-, which 
was filed in the succeeding February in the probate court 
of St. Louis, before Judge Marie P. Leduc: 

"This day. first October, eighteen hundred and four, and the twenty- 
ninth year of the Independence of America, we, Narcisse Brontin, Notary 
PubUc of the United States of America, resident of the town of New 
Orleans, transported ourselves at the demand of Monsieur Regis Loisel in his 
domicile, (house of Monsieur Perillat.) situated at about one-half league 
from the town of New Orleans, where being we have found the said Mr. 
Loisel sick abed, but in his full judgment, memory, and natural under- 
standing, and in presence of the witnesses hereinafter named, he told us 
that fearing death, which is natural to all creatures, its hour tiucertain, he 



I40 John James Ingalls. 

visl ed to put lis i^ff^irs in order and makes his testament, which he dic- 
tated to us in the form following: 

"htrstlv: He has declared himself C. A. R., native of Assumption, in 
Lower Canada, legitimate son of Pegistrc Loisel and ManHte Massin, both 
defunct. 

"Itfrn: He has declared to us that he was married with Miss Helene 
Chauviii, resident of St. Louis of Illinois, of which marriage he has two 
daughters, nam-^d Manette, aged three years, ^nd Clementine, aeed sixteen 
mo'ithr., and that his spouse is a'^ present pregnant. 

"Item: He declared to us that he ow ed several persons, as w ill be *>stab- 
lished by his notes, obligations, and accounts, and that there were due him 
amounts according as they shall be estabhshed by bills, accounts, and 
obligations which shall be found in his possession. He orders his testa- 
mentary executors to pay his debts and to receiv what is due to him. 

"Item- He declared to us that his property consisted of a mulatto 
and a farm at St. Lo.'is of Illinois, in a house and lot, the title papers of 
which are at Mr. Clarmorgan's; in horned cattle, &c. 

"Hem He declared to us, naming for his ?ole and universal heirs his 
above named two daughters, Manette and Clementine, and also the child 
of which his spouse is pregnant, in case he Uvc, shall inherit an equal por 
tion with the children before named. 

"Item: He has declared to us, naming for tutrix and curatrix of his 
children his said spouse, relieving her from all legal responsibility. 

"Item. He declared to us, naming for testamentary executors of his 
estate the Sieurs Auguste Chouteau and Jacc^ues Clamorgan, merchants of 
St. Louis of Illinois, to whom he gives power to make inventory sale and 
subdivisison of his estate between his heirs, without the intervention of 
jaw under any pretext. He supplicates them also to have the kindness to 
have three masses said for the repose of his soul. 

"Item: He declared to us that he had here in town, in his trunk, a 
bundle of law-papers concerning Mr. Peignoux and Mr. Lafourcade, which 
said papers, in case any accident should happen him, he desires that Mr. 
Manuel Lisa should take charge of and remit them to Mr. Clamorgan. 

"Item: He declared to us having merchandise on the Upper Missouri, 
in the care of Mr. Pierre Tabeau. He prays his testamentary executors 
to cause the whole to be brought to St. Louis of Illinois. He declared to 
us also having here in town forty buffalo-robes, which he prays Mr. Eugene 
Dorcier to have the kindness to sell them, and to pay with the proceeds the 
debts which might be occasioned by his sickness, and to remit the balance, 
if perchance any be left, to his executors testamentary. 

"Item: He declared to us to have an account current with Mr Cla- 
morgan. extending many years back; that he had signed an account of 
fortv thousand and some hundred livres, but that since that time he had 



Regis Loisel. 141 

paid the said Glamorgan, at divers times, a greater amount than the said 
sum. 

"Item: He declared to us that the said House of Glamorgan, Loisel & 
Company owed him live thousand livres at least. 

"Item: In case that the goods in possession of the testator in the 
Upper Missouri are not sufficient to pay that which he owes Mr. Ghouteau, 
he prays him to have a kind regard for his family. 

"Item: The testator declared to us that he annulled all other testa- 
ments, codicils, powers or dispositions which he has made before this one, 
declaring null and of no effect, or effect all such except this. 

"Which having read to him, he signed in presence of Manuel Lisa, 
Antoine Fromentin, and Joseph Perillat, witnesses domiciled in this town. 

"In testimony whereof, we said notary have affixed our hand and the 
seal of our office the day and year before written. 
[L. S.] (Signed) "Reg. Loisel. 

"Antoine Fromentin. 

' ' Manuel Lisa. X arcisse Brontin, 

' ' Joseph Perillat. Notary Public. 

"I certify that the present copy conforms to the original which rests 
in my hands. Narcisse Brontin, Notary Public. 

"New Orleans, this fourth of October, 1804." 

Having executed this testament, Monsieur Brontin took 
his ink-horn and departed. The sick man became impa- 
tient at the restraints of his illness and anxious to join his 
family before approaching winter had closed the river above 
with ice. Borne to his boat upon a couch of buffalo -robes, 
he started on the long journey to St. Louis. His strength 
was not equal to the fatigue and exposure of the voyage. 
Near the mouth of the Arkansas he died and was buried, 
and his grave no man knoweth. Death baffled his ambi- 
tious dreams at the early age of twenty-six, but the three 
masses for which he supplicated could not give repose to 
his soul. The child with which his wife was pregnant was 
born, became a priest, and died. Helene, his widow, mar- 
ried again, bore other children, and died full of years. His 
two daughters became mothers, and died, and their children 



142 John James Ingalls. 

followed them to the cathedral graveyard, and still he was 
not at rest. 

In the Treaty of Cession the Government recognized the 
validity of the land-grants made by the Spanish and French 
governors, and appointed boards of commissioners to report 
those that were genuine to Congress for confirmation. After 
the death of Loisel, the concession of Delassus at Cedar Island 
was ostensibly sold to his executors for ten dollars, payable 
in shaved deer-skins at forty cents per pound. The differ- 
ent boards refused to recognize the claim, and it slept until 
1858, when Congress passed an act confirming the title, and 
authorizing the issue of a patent for 38,111 lo-oo's acres of 
land to the legal representative of Regis Loisel, to be located 
upon any vacant lands of the United States. In 1859 the 
lands were entered in the counties of Nemaha, Marshall, Jack- 
son, and Pottawatomie, Kansas, and remained vacant ten years 
longer under an accumulated burden of unliquidated taxes. 

Meanwhile legislatures enacted laws, courts adjudged and 
decreed, and generations of lawyers wrangled in fruitless 
effort to determine who was entitled to this imperial inher- 
itance — whether the title descended to the lineal posterity 
of the testator, or whether it passed in 1805 to the executor, 
Jacques Clamorgan, by the alleged sale for twenty-five pounds 
of shaved deer-skins, that did not appear to have been paid. 

And thus at last, in the strange vicissitude and mutation 
that accompanies human affairs, it chanced that the pro- 
tracted strife finalh closed in the courts of Nemaha, and 
it was there determined who were the "heirs of Regis Loisel." 

Had the bandage been removed from the eyes of the 
Goddess of Justice upon that wintry day, she would have 
dropped the idle scales and brandished the avenging sword. 



Regis Loisel. 143 

They have built her a stately temple since, whose harmoni- 
ous and symmetrical mass is the poem of a landscape that 
was enchanted before a cheap railway had spanned the Nem- 
aha with its skeleton truss, and dumped its black grade diag- 
onally across the great military road that trailed westward 
through the village and over the level prairie toward Salt 
I^ake and the Pacific Ocean. But upon the day aforesaid, 
the goddess dwelt like the apostle in her own hired house, a 
chosen sanctuary of cottonwood that stood four-square to all 
the winds that blew. Here were the aegis, the palladium, the 
forum, the ermine, the immortal twelve, and all the parapher- 
nalia inseparable from the administration of law even in its 
most primitive form — essential to its sanctions, the staple of 
its orators; without which, we are assured by its ministers, 
the proud edifice of our liberties would incontinently topple 
and fall headlong from turret to foundation-stone. 

The two windows rattling in their rude casements were 
curtained with frost of the thickness and consistency of tripe. 
Between them, with his head dangerously near the rough 
mortar of the ceiling, sat his honor the judge, surveying the 
scene from an inverted packing-box, his boots interrupt- 
ing his vision, and his chair inclined against the wall. The 
harangues of the advocates were enlivened by the musical 
clinking of glasses, the festal notes of the rustic Cremona, 
and boisterous bursts of inebriated laughter from the dog- 
gery beneath. Planks of splintered pine, sustained by a beg- 
garly account of empty boxes, soap and cracker, spice and 
candle, from adjacent groceries, afforded repose to a group of 
dilapidated loafers w^ho crouched and shivered around the 
smoking stove. As they masticated their ''flat tobacker," they 



144 John James Ingalls. 

meditatively expectorated in the three-ply saw-dust that car- 
peted the floor, and listened to the will of Regis Loisel. 

The subtle potency of the soul of the bold adventurer 
spoke imperiously from the abyss of a forgotten past. His 
voice emanated from an unknown grave, across the inter- 
val of three-quarters of a century. His restless and uneasy 
ghost animated the mysterious syllables at whose utterance 
arose the phantom of Law, which irresistibly forbade intru- 
sion upon sixty square miles of Kansas prairie, in the name 
and bv the will of Regis Loisel. 

And so the drama ended. Three generations had passed 
away. The squalid hamlet had expanded into an oj)ulcnt 
metropolis, of which his descendants are eminent and hon- 
ored citizens. States had sprung like an exhalation from 
the wilderness. An intense civilization pervaded the pro- 
foundest solitudes. Nothing remained unchanged in the wild 
world of his brief life save the impassive and desolate river 
which wears as then, and will forever wear, the impervious 
mask of its sullen mystery; which bears as then, and will 
forever bear, the burden of its secret unrevealed, yielding no 
response to the living who tempt its inconstant wave, nor the 
dead who sleep by its complaining shore. _^ 

May his soul rest in peace! 



THE LAST OF THE JAYHAWKERS. 



The Audubon of the twentieth century, as he compiles the 
history of the birds of Kansas, will vainly search the "Ornitho- 
logical Biographies" of his illustrious predecessor for any allu- 
sion to the "jayhawk." Investigation will disclose the jay 
(Cyanurus cristahis), and the hawk (Accipeter fuscus): the 
former a mischievous, quarrelsome egg-sucker, a blue-coated 
cousin of the crow and an epicure of carrion ; the latter a cloud- 
haunting pirate, the assassin of the atmosphere, whose flattened 
skull, rapacious beak, and insatiable appetite for blood impel 
it to an agency of destruction, and place it among the repulsive 
ranks of the living ministers of death. Were it not that Nature 
forbids the adulterous confusion of her types, he might surmise 
that the jayhawk was a mule among birds, the illicit offspring 
of some sudden liason or aerial intrigue, endowed with the most 
malign attributes of its progenitors. But as this conclusion 
would be unerringly rejected by the deductions of his science, 
he would be compelled to look elsewhere for the origin of 
this obscure tenant of the air, whose notable exploits caused 
it to be accepted as the symbol of the infant State, giving 
to a famous regiment its title, and to the inhabitants their 
novel appellation of "Jayhawkers," by that happy nomenclature 
which would induce the unsophisticated chronicler to suppose 
that the population of Illinois was composed entirely of in- 
fants at the breast, and that the chief vegetable productions 
of Missouri were ipecac and lobelia. 



145 



146 John James Ingalls. 

Convinced bv his researches that the jayhawk no longer 
existed, he would naturally inquire whether it had once lived 
and became extinct, or whether it was merely a fabulous 
myth, the creation of vagrant fancy, flying only in a dream- 
er's brain. 

Instances are not wanting of other celebrated birds whose 
origin is equally uncertain, and whose existence even has 
been denied. Prominent among them is the dodo, that enig- 
ma in feathers, the last of whose melancholy race was re- 
ported to have expired not earlier than two centuries ago, 
upon the island of Mauritius. This belief was accepted by 
the scientific world upon \vhat appeared to be credible evi- 
dence; and yet its erroneousness was conclusively shown 
by Oliver Wendell Holmes, in a case involving the question, 
tried several years since before the Suffolk Common Pleas, 
in which the doctor introduced in testimony a bill of sale 
showing incontrovcrtibly that a dodo had been recently 
sold in Boston, and that consequently the species could not 
have been extinct. The document was as follows: 
John E. Smith to Robert C. Greer, Dr. 

Oct. 13. To one canary-bird S2.50 

Nov. 10. To one do do 3.00 



Rec'dpay't. $5-50 

The lurid placards of modern insurance companies have 
familiarized the public mind with the phoenix, an Arabian 
fowl, reputed to live five hundred years, at the expiration 
of which patriarchal period, it erected a funeral pyre of sweet- 
scented woods and aromatic gums, perched upon its apex, 
fanned it into flame by the undulations of its tail and was suicid- 
allv consumed in the conflagration. It is related of a famous 



The Last of the Jayhawkers. 147 

wit who supposed he was dying that his physician felt of his 
extremities, found they were not cold, and told his patient 
that no man could die while his feet were warm ; to which he 
responded that he had heard of one who did, and being asked 
to name him, replied, "John Rogers!" whereupon a heavenly 
smile lit up his wan features and he passed on to the higher life. 
The phoenix was another instance of the same fact, and its 
last hours were probably consoled by the thought that out 
of its ashes another phoenix would arise to repeat the"^ex- 
periment, be similarly calcined and reproduced, and subse- 
quently alluded to by an American newspaper in connection 
with the great Chicago fire. As but one phoenix existed ^at 
one time, and he was his own successor, this bird has the 
honor of being the only known illustration in the animal king- 
dom of a sole corporation. 

The reader of the "Arabian Nights Entertainments" wnll 
not fail to recall the roc — the roc upon which so many have 
split — the roc of ages gone by, one of whose eggs, suitably 
decomposed, would have made an omelette for the entire 
Liberal Republican party of Kansas. 

Time would fail to tell of the auk, the emu, the harpy, 
the apteryx, and the omithorhvncus, of whom the world 
was not worthy, that have wandered in deserts and moun- 
tains, and in dens and caves of the earth; vague, mysterious 
creatures, congeners of the jayhawk in its dubious origin 
and its wild career. 

The jayhawk is a creation of mythology. Every nation 
has its myths, human and animal, some of which disappear 
as the State matures, while others continue to stand out upon 
its early horizon in conspicuous proportions, enlarged rather 
than diminished by the distance that intervenes. The infancy 



148 John James Ingalls. 

and childhood of communities, as well as that of individuals, 
abound in legends and traditions which become crystallized by- 
time into a mythology in which qualities become personified, 
and the forces and operations of Nature are symbolized as liv- 
ing beings, so that history, like the nursery, has its Mother 
Goose's Melodies whose idle rhymes were sung at the cradle 
of the race. 

In the twilight of time the domain of fact insensibly 
yields to the shadowy realm of fable; the true ^nd the false 
are confonded; the real is indistinguishable from the imag- 
inary; and out of the confusion is born a brood of phan- 
toms and chimeras, centaurs, demi-gods and goddesses, heroes 
and monsters, phoenixes and jayhawks, that under different 
names have peopled the early times of every nation since 
the world began. In this strange procreation, beauty becomes 
Venus ; strength, Hercules ; appetite, Bacchus ; manhood, in its 
glory, Apollo; and the elements themselves are endowed with 
sentient life. 

The process is not, as we are apt to imagine, peculiar 
to the races of antiquity, but is witnessed in the history of 
every community, great or small, which attempts the ex- 
periment of an independent existence. The realism of later 
days sometimes strips these phantasms of their insubstan- 
tial vestments and reveals their native deformity, as the 
traveler with his lens detects upon the distant summit which 
seems but a deeper stain upon the forehead of the morning 
sky, its ragged garb of forest and its gray scalp of rock; but 
generally they become more respectable with age. They are 
accepted as facts. Poetry decorates them with its varnish. 
Orators cover them w4th a rhetorical veneer, and they are 
incorporated into the general literature of the country. 



The Last of the Jayhawkers. 149 

Had an irreverent Athenian ventured to doubt Silenus 
or denounce Priapus, he would probably have been received 
with a stormy outcry like that which greeted Bancroft when 
he ventured to disclose the truth about some of the paragons 
of early American history. And yet it cannot be denied 
that the popular notion of the founders of the Government 
is as purely mythological as the Grecian dream of Jupiter 
and Minerva. With what awe in our boyhood do we con- 
template the majestic name of Washington! That benign 
and tranquil although somewhat stolid visage looks down 
upon us from a serene atmosphere unstained with earthly 
passion. That venerable fame bears no taint of mortal 
frailty save in the juvenile episode of the hatchet, in which 
the venial error is expiated by the immortal candor of its 
confession. To our revering fancy, the massive form wrapped 
in military cloak stands forever at midnight upon the frozen 
banks of the Delaware, watching the patriot troops cross 
the icy current in the darkness before the grand morning 
of Trenton; or else, arrayed in black velvet small-clothes, 
resigning his commission to the Continental Congress at 
Annapolis. We learn in riper years, with grief not unmin- 
gled with incredulity, that this great man was subject to 
-ungovernable outbreaks of rage, that he swore like a mule- 
driver, and that he was not only the Father of his Country, 
but also of Governor Posey of Indiana. 

With such disheartening examples before us, it is not 
unreasonable to believe that the student of Kansas history 
a hundred years hence, as he reverts from the men and 
manners of that degenerate time to the first splendid lustra 
of his native State, will turn to Genesis vi. 4 for consola- 
tion, and say with a sigh: "There were giants in the earth 



150 John James Ingalls. 

in those days." The colossal characters nurtured in the 
primeval convulsions of our politics will have passed into 
mythology. Tradition will have lent its pensive charm to 
the eloquence of Carney, the unquenchable fire of Crawford, 
Lane's impregnable virtue, Lowe's aggressive vigor, the sen- 
sitive honor of Clarke — that "tall young oak of the Kaw," 
whose acorns fattened the swine in Caldwell's sty — Caldwell, 
who proudly rose in his seat in the United States Senate in '72 
and hurled back with indignation the charge that he bought 
his senatorial toga at a political slop-shop — ah ! who could for- 
bear to admit that there were indeed giants in the earth in 
those days? 

This was the close of the epoch when the jayhawk flew in 
the troubled atmosphere. It was an early bird, and it caught 
many a Missouri worm. The worms did not object to the 
innocent amusement of the bird, but they insisted that public 
opinion must and should be respected. 

But the bird had a mission. It could not be caught with 
chaff, nor would it allow salt to be put on its tail. It pursued 
its ministry of retribution, protection, and vengeance through 
many bloody years, till the worms were fain to concede the 
superiority of their feathered antagonist and adopt the senti- 
ment of the popular melody, "Oh, birdie, I am tired now!" 

The Border Ruffians in '56 constructed the eccaleobion in 
which the jayhawk was hatched, and it broke the shell upon the 
reedy shores of the Marais des Cygnes. Its habits were not 
migratory, and for many years its habitat was Southern Kan- 
sas; but eventually it extended its field of operations north- 
ward, and soon after the outbreak of the war was domiciled in 
the gloomy defiles and lonely forests of the bluft's whose rugged 



The Last of the JayhawkErs. 151 

bastions resist the assaults of the Missouri from the mouth of 
the Kaw to the Nebraska line. 

The situation was favorable. The occasion was auspicious. 
The new vState, itself intensely loyal, had but two lines of inter- 
course with its Eastern sisters — one by rail and one by river — 
both under the control of enemies who considered the engulf- 
ing of trains through broken bridges, and the murder of unsus- 
pecting passengers upon steamers from ambush along the 
shores, as honorable warfare. 

To the west and south extended unpeopled and desolate 
solitudes, open to sudden invasion. Hostile camp-fires burned 
around the fistulous lakes in the forests of Buchanan and 
Platte, and the insolent challenge of the sentinel was heard at 
nightfall upon the shores of the deserted river. The memories 
of brutal wrongs were fresh in the memories of implacable 
sufferers. 

The farms and plantations of that irregular triangle known 
as the "Platte Purchase," whose hypothenuse is the Missouri 
River, abounded in horses and herds, hogs and cattle — the 
accumulation of years of unexampled prosperity. Its fat soil 
nurtured magnificent orchards. Its broad fields, cultivated 
by a race of negroes whose average intelligence was superior 
to that of their lazy lords, had returned incredible yields of 
wheat, hemp, and corn. Money was abundant. Granary, 
bin, and larder were overflowing. Spacious mansions, with 
airy verandas and porticos, comfortable appurtenances of 
barns, sheds, and out-buildings, reposed in the tranquil seclu- 
sion of pastured lawns, whose ancient trees cast a venearble 
shade upon the blue-grass sward below. 

Indifferent roads and lack of public conveyances rendered 
the saddle the chief dependence for local communication, and 



152 John James Ingalls. 

resulted in a breed of incomparable riding-horses, whose pecu- 
liar gait, known as "single-foot rack," is the poetry of locomo- 
tion. A generous diet, freedom from the worst cares of life, 
and much exercise on horseback during the greater portion of 
the year had gradually produced a race of ruddy and stalwart 
men, bold and turbulent by nature in youth, but rendered 
timid by wealth and toned down to inaction in riper years by 
too much fat bacon and "apple-jack and honey." 

Slavery, as practiced among them, had few of its most 
repulsive features; but its existence fixed their political con- 
victions. So they put their sons on their best horses and sent 
them South with plethoric saddle-bags to join the hordes of 
Price, while they themselves remained at home upon their 
plantations and avowed their unalterable devotion to the 
Constitution and the Union. 

Amid the convulsions of the period, and with the stimulus 
of an unappeasable appetite for vengeance, such an inviting 
field could not long remain unvisited. The temptation was 
irresistible, and the jayhawk plumed itself for the quarry _ 
The courts were closed. The regular armies were engaged in 
other directions. The authorities upon either side were too 
much engrossed to listen to complaints. The young men were 
in the brush or the camp All the ordinary avocations of 
industrv and the usual pursuits of life were at an end. The 
negroes laid down the shovel and the hoe, picked up as sub- 
stitutes for the agricultural implements, mules, horses, wag- 
ons, furniture, beds, bedding, provisions, and simultaneously 
started for Kansas, waking the echoes as they thronged the 
ferries with the amazing chorus, "Oh, we're the Snolligosters, 
and we'll all jine de Union!" In some instances they were 
pursued by their former owners, assisted by their facile parti- 



The Last of the Jayhawkers. 153 

sans in the land of refuge, conveyed by night in skiffs across 
the river, and, after frightful preliminary torture, deliberately 
burned to death. 

At this time patriotism and larceny had not entirely coal- 
esced, and upon the debatable frontier between these contend- 
ing passions appeared a race of thrifty warriors, whose souls 
were rent with conflicting emotions at the thought of their 
bleeding country's wrongs and the available assets of Missouri. 
Their avowed object was the protection of the border. Their 
real design was indiscriminate plunder. They adopted the 
name of "Jayhawkers." 

Conspicuous among the irregular heroes who thus sprang 
to arms in i86r, and ostensibly their leader, was an Ohio stage- 
driver by the name of Charles Metz, who, having graduated 
with honor from the penitentiary of Missouri, assumed from 
prudential reasons the more euphonious and distinguished 
appellation of "Cleveland." He was a picturesque brigand. 
Had he worn a slashed doublet and trunk hose of black velvet, 
he would have been the ideal of an Italian bandit. Youno- 
erect, and tall, he was sparely built, and arrayed himself like 
a gentleman in the costume of the day. His appearance was 
that of a student. His visage was thin, his complexion olive- 
tinted and colorless, as if "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of 
thought." Black piercing eyes, finely cut features, dark hair 
and beard correctly trimmed, completed a ioiit ensemble that 
was strangely at variance with the aspect of the score of disso- 
lute and dirty desperadoes that formed his command. These 
were generally degraded ruffians of the worst type, whose high- 
est idea of elegance in personal appearance was to have their 
mustaches died a villainous metallic black, irrespective of the 
consideration whether its native hue was red or brown. It is 



154 John James Ingali^s. 

a noticeable fact that a dyed mustache stamps its wearer inevit- 
ably either as a pitiful snob or an irreclaimable scoundrel. 

The vicinity of the fort, with its troops, rendered Leav- 
enworth undesirable as a base of operations. St. Joseph was 
also heavilv garrisoned, and they accordingly selected Atchi- 
son as the point from which to move on the enemy's works. 
Atchison at that time contained about twenty-five hundred 
inhabitants. Its business was transacted upon one street, 
and extended west about four blocks from the river. Its posi- 
tion upon the extreme cur\^e of the "Grand Detour" of the 
Missouri affording unrivalled facilities for escape to the inte- 
rior in the event of pursuit. Having been principally settled 
by Southerners, it still afforded much legitimate game for our 
bird of prey, and its loyal populaticn having already largely 
enlisted, the citv was incapable of organized resistance to the 
depredations of the marauders. 

They established their headquarters at the saloon of a Ger- 
man named Krnest Renner, where they held (h^ir councJs of 
war, and whence they started upon their forays. The winter 
was favorable to their designs, as the river closed early, enabling 
them to cross upon the ice. Cleveland proclaimed himself 
Marshal of Kansas, and announced his determination to run 
the country. He invited the cordial cooperation of all good 
citizens to assist him in sustaining the Government and punish- 
ing its foes. Ignorant of his resources and his purposes, the 
people at first were inclined to welcome their strange guests as 
a protection from the dangers to which they were exposed ; but 
it soon became apparent that the doctors were worse than the 
disease. They took possession of the town, defied the munici- 
pal authorities, and committed such intolerable excesses that 
their expulsion was a matter'of public safety. Their incursions 



The; Last of the Jayhawkers. 155 

into Missouri were so frequent and audacious that a company 
of infantry was sent from Weston and stationed at Winthrop 
to effect their capture, but to no purpose. They soon ceased 
to inquire about the political views of their victims. If a man 
had an enemy in any part of the country whom he wished to 
injure, he reported him to Cleveland as a rebel, and the next 
night he was robbed of all he possessed and considered fortu- 
nate if he escaped without personal violence. In some cases, 
at the intercession of friends, the property was restored; but 
generally there was no redress. A small detachment of cav- 
alry was sent from the fort to take them, but just as they had 
dismounted in front of the saloon and were hitching their 
horses, Cleveland appeared at the door with a cocked navy in 
each hand and told them he would shoot the first man that 
moved a finger. Calling two or three of his followers, he dis- 
armed the dragoons, took their horses and equipments, and 
sent them back on foot to reflect upon the vicissitudes of 
military affairs. 

Early in 1S62 the condition became desperate, and the city 
authorities, in connection with the commander at Winthrop, 
concerted a scheme which brought matters to a crisis. Cleve- 
land and about a dozen of his gang were absent in Missouri on 
a scout. The time of their return was known, and Marshal 
Holbert had his forces stationed in the shadow of an old ware- 
house near the bank of the river. It was a brilliant moonlight 
night in midwinter. The freebooters emerged form the forest 
and crossed upon the ice. They were freshly mounted, and 
each one had a spare horse. Accompanying them were two 
sleighs loaded with negroes, harness, and miscellaneous plun- 
der. As they ascended the steep shore of the levee, uncon- 
scious of danger, they were all taken prisoners, except Cleve- 



156 John James Ingalls. 

land, who turned suddenly, spurred his horse down the em- 
bankment, and escaped. The captives were taken to Wes- 
ton, where they soon afterward enlisted in the Federal Army. 
The next day Cleveland rode into town, captured the City Mar- 
shal on the street, and declared his intention to hold him as a 
hostage for the safety of his men. He compelled the Marshal 
to walk by the side of his horse a short distance, when, finding a 
crowd gathering for his capture, he struck him a blow on the 
head with his pistol and fled. He continued his exploits for 
some months, but was finally driven to bay in one of the south- 
ern counties, and, attempting to let himself down the side of a 
precipitous ravine, was shot by a soldier from above, the ball 
entering under his arm and passing through liis body. His 
temporarv widow took his sacred clay to St. Joseph, where its 
place of interment is marked by a marble headstone bearing 
the usual memoranda, and concluding with the following: 

"One hero less on earth, 
One angel more in heaven!" 

The unreliable character of grave-stone literature has been 
the theme of frequent comment, but unless this ostensible 
eulogy was intended as a petrified piece of jocularity and gra- 
tuitously inscribed by the sculptor, it may, perhaps, be justly 
considered the most liberal application of the maxim, ''Nil de 
moriuis nisi honum," to be found in anv American cemeterv 



THE "GOOD-FELLOW GIRL, 



n 



The doctrines of female sufifrage and the equality of the 
sexes are undermining the foundations of our social structure. 
Their advocates call it reform. It seems more like revolution. 
They are substituting the hotel and the club for the home, 
comradeship for marriage, and Bohemianism for domestic life. 
With wealth, leisure, and luxury they are establishing a social 
code that demands fidelity only to those who are faithless and 
that forgives everything in a woman except old-fashioned 
goodness. 

The recent records of the divorce courts in New York and 
all our great cities justify the apprehension that quite as many 
of the fair sex are unjustly suspected of innocence as are falsely 
accused of wrong-doing. It is commonly said that the world 
is growing better. Probably it is — in spots. There are many 
good people who pay tithes of anise atonement and contrition 
Sunday and forget the weightier matters of the law every other 
day in the week. 

Universities, colleges, libraries, and museums are endowed 
by contributions to the conscience fund from the death-bed 
repentance of contrite pirates and extortioners who, having 
burned the candle to Mammon all their lives, blow the snulT in 
the face of the Lord. This is morally the most corrupt and 
greedy age since Nero played first violin at the burning of 
Rome. 

157 



158 John James Ingalls. 

Those who have seen the frescoes and sculptures of Pompeii 
can comprehend why that composite heap was buried under 
the cinders and ashes of Vesuvius ; why the site of Sodom and 
Gomorrah is forgotten; why ancient Corinth was despoiled 
and its inhabitants extirpated. There was no other medicine 
for such depravity and degradation. Most travellers who 
know the gin-mills of London by sight and have walked the 
Strand after nightfall, or have visited the Moulin Rouge, or 
witnessed the viciousness of Berlin and Vienna and Venice, 
know that ever}^ capital in Europe can give odds to Pompeii 
and Corinth. 

A fatal contagion infects our society and portends individ- 
ual degeneration and national decay. No nation can long 
survive a loss of moral integrity or the sanctity of the home. 
No one can observe without alarm the invasion of our country 
by this foreign pestilence and the amazing changes that are 
going on in the social condition. A deluge of French and Eng- 
lish sewage is polluting literature, art, and the stage. Plays 
glorifying infidelity, making marriage a jest, and sneering at 
virtue as rustic prudery are supplemented by numberless sex 
and problem novels that treat Nature's holiest mysteries with 
the brutal candor of the clinic and the dissecting-table. 
Eager, thronging multitudes listen to such plays as "The 
Degenerates," "Sapho," and "The Turtle." 

It is unfortunate, from a moral standpoint, that the best 
of mankind are not invulnerable. There is no armor proof 
against temptation. It is still more discouraging that good 
people are generally uninteresting and that we remember with 
most pleasure the persons and events we ought to forget. It 
is a prodigious task to lift a man, a community from barbarism 
Into enlightenment and civilization, and a still greater task to 



The " Good-FeIvIvO w Giri^." 159 

keep him or it there. The tendency is to relapse. The grav- 
itation is to the gutter. It requires the constant active coop- 
eration of the conservative forces of religion, education, laws, 
habits, and customs to maintain even external order and 
decency. 

Break down the barriers of modesty and shame in woman, 
teach the young that the distinction between right and wrong 
is an inversion of theology, that conscience is an impertinent 
interference with the natural enjoyment of life, that vice wears 
velvet and virtue goes in rags, and the evil is irreparable. 
This is the fatal process that is now going on through the 
decadence of art, literature, and the stage. 

It is developing a type of womanhood of which Helen of 
Troy, and Cleopatra, and Messalina are historic represent- 
atives — the woman of the world, the up-to-date woman, the 
end-of-the-century woman, the jolly "good-fellow girl," who 
goes to the races with one man, and bets, drinks cocktails, 
smokes cigarettes, and goes to midnight suppers with another, 
and is introduced to pugilists by a third, and listens to innuen- 
does, double entendres, and unprintable stories. 

Such is the extreme nineteenth-century protest against 
Puritanism. The home is the unit of the State, and the 
social law hitherto has been that woman's proper place is 
home — not as a slave or a drudge, but as a companion, col- 
league, and spiritual guardian ; walking a path not of roses, 
but of love, faith, and duty, and supreme in that kingdom. 
The properly reared and educated young woman anticipates 
marriage and maternity as her natural destiny. The race- 
track, midnight revelries, high kicking, skirt-dancing, and 
*'coon" songs are not favorable preliminaries. 



i6o John James Ingali^s. 

Even the most sated and cynical of men in their better 

intervals turn reverently to the higher ideal of the 

"Perfect woman, nobly planned, 
To warn, to comfort, and command; 
But yet a spirit still and bright, 
With something of an angel light." 



THE ANNEXATION OF HAWAII. 



(Written immediately after President McKinley sent the Hawaiian Treaty 

to the Senate, June i6, 1897.) 

Midway between the Golden Gate and Yokohama, but far 
outside a line drawn from the northwestern to the southwest- 
ern extremities of the Republic, lies the archipelago known on 
the map as the Sandwich Islands, set like a cluster of gems in 
the immeasurable azure of the Pacific, where one hundred 
years ago Captain Cook found half a million natives living in a 
state of feudal communism, without laws or morals or indus- 
try, their simple wants supplied by Nature beneath a sky that 
was cloudless, and in a year that had no winter. 

Civilization bequeaths to weaker races only its vices. 
The Indian, the Negro, the Chinese, the Hindoo, the Polyne- 
sian, are illustrations of the blessings which Christian nations 
bestow upon their victims. Since 1778, the date of discovery, 
the native population, under the benign influences of alcohol 
and disease, has constantly declined till but a fraction remains. 
In the twenty-five years following the landing of Cook ftilly 
one-half of the original inhabitants perished from these causes, 
and the diminution has since steadily progressed. Their final 
extinction or absorption is the decree of destiny. 

The fertile lands, the harbors, the political functions, 
meanwhile have been acquired by foreigners, who control the 
commerce, the agriculture, and the government of the islands, 

and desire to make them a colony, a territory, or a dependency 

161 



i62 John James Ingalls. 

of the United States. Treaties to this end have repeatedly 
been considered, and the latest is now pending (June, 1897) 
for ratification by the Senate. 

It nmst be conceded that our policy hitherto has been 
strictly continental from the beginning. We have rejected 
all efforts to extend our boundaries outside the North Amer- 
ican continent. \\> have permitted the other great Powers 
to establish naval stations in the West Indies, which are a 
menace to every seaport upon our Atlantic coast. The hun- 
:ger for the horizon seemed to have been satiated, but the 
instinct for conquest, which is such a powerful passion in our 
race, has been inactive, not because it was extinct, but because 
we had enough. The Louisiana and Florida Purchase, the 
annexation of Texas, the robbery of Mexico, satisfied from 
time to time the appetite of the pioneer. But at last we have 
•abolished the frontier and subjugated the desert. The public 
<iomain is exhausted. The struggle for life is becoming more 
intense. Competition is more bitter and strenuous. Society 
is now in a hand-to-hand contest with the destructive forces 
which civilization itself has engendered, and it is evident that 
we are entering a new epoch in our history. If we do not prey 
upon others, we may prey upon ourselves. 

The indications also are that England, France, Spain, Ger- 
many, and Russia are yielding to the time-spirit which mani- 
fests itself in the sullen discontent of the poor and the fatal 
satietv of the rich, and seeking new fields for adventure and 
new markets for trade. 

We have come in the United States to the fork of the roads. 
<Our industrial competitors and rivals have entered upon a 
•career of stupendous rapacity. In Africa, Asia, China, the 
Philippines, in every abode of inferior races, they are engaged 



The- AnnExatiox of Hawaii. 163 

in schemes of plunder and depredation as savage and brutal 
as the ravages of the Huns or the descent of the Goths and 
Vandals. 

Directly in the pathway of our commerce with Australia, 
the Orientals, and the Northern Pacific, the inevitable route 
of the ocean cable, the rendezvous of fleets and navies, lies this 
little insular domain whose fate within the next thirtv davs 
is to be determined by the votes of ninety men behind the 
closed gates of the Senate of the United States. That the 
Sandwich Islands will belong to us or to some unfriendlv power 
in the immediate future may be taken for granted. They can 
not stand alone. They have neither the population nor the 
wealth to hold their own in the family of nations. 

The fundamental question before the American people, 
therefore, is not so much whether it will be to our advantage to 
annex them, as to whether it will be to our disadvantage to 
have England annex them; whether with thirty-five hundred 
miles of vulnerable frontier on the north, with the fortifications 
of Halifax and Vancouver at either end on the Atlantic and 
Pacific, we can afford to have this blustering ruffian of the 
world build another Gibraltar in mid-ocean, where her ships 
can assemble and menace our sea-front from the Columbia 
River to the Nicaragua Canal. 

It needs no soothsayer to predict that the next theatre 
of industrial and commercial activity will be in the Eastern 
Hemisphere. The unprecedented energy of Japan, the exten- 
sion of the Russian railroad system through the Asiatic Con- 
tinent, and the subsequent development of its navy and com- 
mercial marine, the gold exodus of the valley of the Yukon, 
the enormous value of the forests and fisheries of the North- 
west, and the new highways and centers of exchange that 



164 John James Ingalls. 

will result from the completion of the Isthmus Canal, and the 
practical partition of China with its four hundred million 
inhabitants, unerringly point to a revolution that will make 
the twentieth century the most marvelous in the annals of 
mankind. 

In this great theatre of action Hawaii is a focal point 
of transcendent importance. It is the key of the Pacific. 
That the treaty of annexation is opposed to the traditions 
of the Republic can be conceded. But we are opening a 
new volume in the world's history. The westward path 
of empire has made the circle of the globe, and it must retrace 
its footsteps or go on to the goal whence it started. New 
times demand new manners and new men. Tradition was 
opposed to the purchase of Louisiana by Jefferson from 
Napoleon ; to the acquisition of Florida ; to the Alaskan treaty 
with Russia. There was no warrant in the Constitution for 
either, but they were sanctioned by public opinion. Alaska is 
not contiguous to our territory, and the Klondike is prac- 
tically more remote than Honolulu. With cable communica- 
tion, which will soon be established, the question of distance 
will disappear, the ocean will be no barrier, and time will be 
annihilated. 

The suggestion that the people of Hawaii are not in favor 
of annexation, and that the existing Government is a usurpa- 
tion, is not borne out by any facts that have appeared since 
Mr. Cleveland's ludicrous effort to lower the American flag and 
restore the monarchy by diplomatic methods that would have 
disgraced a rural pettifogger in an attempt to secure fictitious 
co-respondents in a divorce case. 

The constitutional difficulty of establishing some form of 
government not inconsistent with our institutions is more 



The Annexation of Hawaii. 165 

fanciful than real. It could be made a county of the State 
of California, with the consent of that commonwealth. It 
could be attached for judicial and municipal purposes, under 
the same conditions, to Oregon or Washnigton. It is fur- 
ther out than the Isles of Shoals from New Hampshire, or 
Nantucket from Massachusetts, but the conditions are the 
same. It could be declared a military reservation, or it might 
be governed by commissioners under a code like the District 
of Columbia. It would not be indispensable for the pres- 
ervation of liberty and self-government that Hawaii should 
be admitted into the Union as a separate and independent 
State. 

Mr. James Bryce has written an article for The Forum 
upon "The Policy of Annexation for America," in which 
he expresses the opinion that we should not increase our 
territory nor enlarge our navy, nor incorporate populations 
not homogeneous and similar. He fears we might be com- 
pelled to maintain two powerful fleets, one in the Pacific and 
one in the Gulf of Mexico, to defend Cuba and Hawaii from 
foreign attack, if, as he is apprehensive we may, we should 
annex these islands. He deprecates the "earth hunger" 
which rages among European states, and hopes we will wait 
until the appetites are fully satiated. This eminent Eng- 
lishman is the author of an exceedingly valuable and inter- 
esting work on "The American Commonwealth," and the peo- 
ple of the United States will greatly appreciate his solicitude 
for their welfare. The information he conveys as to our "mis- 
sion" is also novel and instructive, and will have great weight 
in determining our conduct in the future. His advice con- 
cerning our duty and our policy in this crisis ought to be the 
subject of early consideration by the President and his Cabi- 



1 66 John James Ingalls. 

net. lest we descend from our pedestal of "wise and pacific 
detachment," whatever that may be. 

The Professor is wiser in his day and generation than 
the children of light. His attitude of lofty and patronizing 
superiority from any other source would seem like unwar- 
ranted and insufferable impertinence. Coming from a cit- 
izen of the nation which has habitually trampled on the 
rights of the feeble and helpless in the four quarters of the 
earth, the chartered bully of the seas, it has elements of 
the grotesque. He admits incautiously that the "fancy for 
coloring new territories British on the map" has had some- 
thing to do with these recent extensions of British authority,, 
but feels that it would be unfortunate should the United States 
be led into anv similar courses. Quite so, Professor. But 
the analysis which detects in the annexation of Hawaii any 
any resemblance to the subjugation and plunder of India, 
or the Rhodes conspiracy in South Africa, is neither philo- 
sophical nor accurate. It lacks perspective. Should Profes- 
sor Jones, of Harvard, or Professor Smith, of Chicago Uni- 
versitv, print in The Nineteenth Century such a lecture tO' 
the people of England on their mission, their duty, and their 
policy, it would be treated with contemptuous derision as an 
ill-mannered exhibition of Yankee impudence. 

Of course, if we take Hawaii, we must keep it. That 
o-oes without saying. If it is attacked, we must defend it. 
Bv fleets and fortresses we must make it impregnable. All 
this is implied. If we get down from the pedestal on which 
the Professor has placed us, and enter into competition for 
markets for our surplus products and areas for our sur- 
plus population, we must go armed. Bibles and mission- 
aries and missals and {treaties of arbitration will not do> 



The Annexation of Hawaii. 167 

We talk of Christian civilization, but when the Venezuela 
boundary question was up a few months ago, the passion 
of the people broke out into a hoarse roar for blood. Gen- 
eral Schurz points out the danger in Harper's Weekly. His- 
experience as a soldier gives his opinion great value. He 
never believed in taking any risks. He regards our position 
now as safe, and shrinks from exposure. He is courageous 
enough, however, to admit that Hawaii can be defended if 
the people are willing to pay the bills. This is the opinion 
also of the retail grocer and the proprietor of the ninety- 
nine-cent bargain-counter. 

Speaker Reed says we can wait. So we can. The trouble 
is that the other nations will not wait. The Speaker has 
not in other emergencies been wanting in aggression. Pa- 
tience is one of the cardinal virtues, but the Speaker has 
not been a companion of Job hitherto. His great fame has 
derived none of its lustre from patience. He says there is 
no need of hurry in aggrandizement, and that as we grow 
we will spread fast enough, which is perspicacious; as we 
grow older we shall increase in years. It has been said that 
everything comes to him who waits, but this is not true 
of nations. Of them it may be said, as of the Kingdom of 
Heaven, that the violent take it bv force. 

From the economic standpoint, the soil of Hawaii is fer- 
tile, the climate incomparable. To its spontaneous prod- 
ucts have been added sugar, potatoes, indigo, coffee, and 
wool. It can readily support a population of a million and 
afford large customs and excise revenues to the Government 
far beyond any possible cost of maintenance. Mingling 
with the large patriotic and strategic considerations is the 
sugar tariff, which may at last be the decisive factor in 



1 68 John James Ingali^s. 

the vote on the treaty. The Dingley Bill, by increasing 
the duty on sugar, has stimulated the culture of the sugar 
"beet, especially in the semi-arid and upland regions of the 
West, where agricultural depression has been most severe 
and disastrous, and political aberration most excessive. 
Never much enamored with high duties hitherto, these 
interests have now organized a formidable opposition to 
Hawaiian annexation on the ground that free cane sugar 
will interfere injuriously with the infant beet sugar indus- 
try. And it cannot be doubted that the same sentiment 
is supporting the Spaniards in the Cuban insurrection. That 
the senators from the \\'est will be wholly insensible to these 
influences is not to be expected. It would not be creditable 
if they were. They represent their constituencies as well 
as the Nation. The future of parties is uncertain, and in 
the contests for succession they must reconcile conflicting 
interests and appeal to that public opinion which is the tri- 
bunal of last resort. It would be strange, but not unprec- 
edented, if, after all, the fate of the Treaty of Annexation 
and the Reciprocity Treaty, under which for several years 
sugar has been admitted free of duty, should hinge upon 
matters relatively of little more consequence than the reck- 
oning of a tapster's arithmetic. 

They will do well to remember that for nations, as for 

men, 

"Emulation has a thousand sons 
That one by one pursue. If you give way, 
Like to an entered tide,* they all rush by 
And leave you hindmost." 



A NATION'S GENESIS. 



The genesis of other nations has been legendary and 
obscure. They have had an unrecorded infancy and child- 
hood of fable and mythology. Their dawn has emerged 
from a dim twilight peopled with vague shadows and phan- 
toms, gods and giants and heroes whose loves and wars are 
written in the Iliad and odes of race. But there is no Rom- 
ulus and Remus business about the United vStates of America ; 
none of its founders were suckled by wolves on the banks 
of the James or the inhospitable shores of Massachusetts Bav. 

The forty thousand Englishmen who migrated to Virginia 
and New England in the first half of the seventeenth centurv 
are no strangers. We know their names, where thev were 
born, why they came, the day and hour they landed, and 
what they did when they set foot on shore. We know, for 
they have told us, that Massachusetts was discovered bv 
accident and settled by mistake. 

The Pilgrims did not intend to land at Plymouth, and 
they would not have remained there could they have gotten 
away. They sailed for the Hudson, and after a tempestuous 
voyage of more than two months, the Mayflower anchored 
off Cape Cod. 

From November 9 till December 22 they explored the 
sunless sea, and then, landing on Plymouth Rock, founded 
the famous colony without the knowledge of the corporation 

169 



I70 John James Ingalls. 

that claimed the territory, and without the sanction of the 
Government bv which it was chartered. They were neither 
much better nor much worse than the average American 
citizen to-day. No doubt they wanted the right to worship 
God according to the dictates of their own conscience; but 
six davs in the week they had an incredibly keen eye for 
the main chance. 

Those sombre exiles brought in their cargo many things 
that did not appear in the invoice. They unloaded from 
their shallop the elements of a civilization the most rapa- 
cious, the most arrogant, the most relentless ever known 
in the historv of mankind. Those who signed their names 
to the compact of government in that dingy cabin released 
social and political ideas of inconceivable energy, self-govern- 
ment, libertv of conscience, universal education. The same 
spirit that penned that charter wrote the Declaration of In- 
dependence, the Constitution, the Proclamation of Emanci- 
pation, guided the pen of Lincoln, unsheathed the sword of 
Grant, trained the guns of Dewey at Manila, and created the 
splendor and opulence and power of the civilization of the 
nineteenth century. 

The prescriptions of these pioneers were simple. They 
were neither dreamers nor doctrinaires nor philosophers, 
Thev were not perplexed with theories nor abstractions. 
Thev were tired of kings. They were fatigued ^\-ith hered- 
itarv distinctions of rank and birth and station. They re- 
solved to build a state in which all men should be polit- 
icallv equal. For the divine right of kings they substituted 
the sovereignty of the people. In the place of prerogatives 
and privilege for the few they put equal opportunities for 
all. Thev determined to secure the universal diffusion of 



A Nation's Genesis. 171 

social and political rights among all citizens, accompanied 
by sufficient guarantees for the protection of life, the secu- 
rity of property, the preservation of liberty. They pro- 
jected that the means of education should be co-extensive 
with the desire to know, and that the conditions of happiness 
should be commensurate with the capacity to enjoy. 

Anniversaries are the exclamation points of history. The 
mind takes mysterious pleasure in their return. The birth- 
day of a hero recalls him from the tomb and he lives again 
in the souls of millions who rehearse his triumphs and deplore 
his death. 

Upon the dial-plate of nations centuries are the hours, 
and although the twentieth century does not begin until 
January i, 1901, it is not inappropriate to recount the vast 
achievement of democratic principles in the hundred years 
now drawing to their close. 

It is certain that in 1800 the most sanguine advocates of 
democracy had no premonition of the coming grandeur and 
glory of the Republic. Its area was then much less than 
one million square miles, which was more than doubled in 
1803 by the sudden and unauthorized acquisition of the 
Louisiana Territory from Napoleon, and has since been in- 
creased by purchase and conquest to three and a half millions, 
exclusive of our possessions in the West Indies and the Pacific. 

It is far within bounds to say that humanity has made 
greater progress in the last hundred years than in all the six 
thousand that preceded. 

In everything that makes life rich and valuable and worth 
living for, health, comfort, beauty and happiness, the hum- 
blest artisan enjoys what kings could not purchase with 
their treasures a century ago. 



172 John James Ingalls. 

When John I. Blair, who died a few weeks ago at ninety- 
seven, was born, it took longer to go from Boston to Wash- 
ington than it does now to travel from New York to San 
Francisco, and cost half as much to make the journey. 
There were no railroads nor steamboats nor telegraphs nor 
telephones. The only means of public conveyance were 
stage-coaches, sailing vessels, and canal-boats. Communi- 
cation by mail was equally costly and uncertain. Cincin- 
nati and St. Louis were frontier outposts, and the name of 
Chicago was not written in the gazettes. There was not 
a friction match in the world. Fire, the indispensable min- 
ister of civilization, was preserved by being covered in the 
ashes at night or struck from the flint and steel into tinder. 
Illumination was by candles. Electricity for light, heat, 
and power was unknown. The awful horrors of surgery 
and the pangs of death had not been mitigated by chloroform. 
Intelligent sanitation and scientific nutrition had not been 
discovered. The typewriter, the sewing-machine, and agri- 
cultural machinery were phantoms of hope. Every acre of 
grain was sowed broadcast, reaped by the sickle, and threshed 
by the "dull thunder of the alternate flail." 

It is difficult to conceive the conditions and incidents 
of existence when John I. Blair was born, and incredible 
that the span of a single life should include these miracles 
of discovery and invention by which earth has been robbed 
of its secrets and the skies of their mysteries. 

The mind is bewildered by the contemplation of its mar- 
velous achievements in the nineteenth century. 

If time and space signified now what they did in 1800, 
the United States could not exist under one government. 
It would not be possible to maintain unity of purpose or 



A Nation's Genesis. 173 

identity of interest between communities separated bv such 
inseparable barriers as Oregon and Florida. But time and 
distance are arbitrary terms, one depending on the trans- 
mission of thought, the other on the transit of ourselves and 
our commodities, our manufactures and our harvests. The 
continent has shrunk to a span. The oceans are obliterated. 
London and Paris and Peking and New York are next-door 
neighbors. 

These vast accomplishments of our race have rendered 
democracy possible. Steam, electricity, and machinerv have 
emancipated millions and left them free to pursue higher 
ranges of effort. Labor has become more remunerative. The 
flood of wealth has raised myriads to comfort and manv to 
affluence. 

A. D. 2000 seems remote, but the interval w^ill pass like 
a vision in the night when one awaketh. He who shall tell 
its story to the eager, listening multitudes that distant morn- 
ing may possibly assure them that the encroachments of 
capital have been restrained and that labor has its just re- 
ward; that the rich are no longer afflicted with satiety nor 
the- poor with discontent; that we have w^ealth without osten- 
tation, liberty without license, taxation without oppression, 
the broadest education, and the least corruption of manners. 
Perhaps not. He can hardly record any great additional vic- 
tories over Nature, unless it be aerial navigation. We have 
conquered the earth and the sea. Some twentieth century 
Edison may conquer the atmosphere. 



A DREAM OF EiMPIRE. 



It is no brag nor vaunt nor empty boast to atlirm that 
the human race since 1800 has advanced further into civ- 
ilization — the sum of moral and material progress of man- 
Icind — than in the six thousand years which preceded. The 
American citizen of three score and ten has lived longer in 
everything that makes life worlli living than Methuselah in 
all his tranquil, stagnant centuries. 

When Senator Morrill, of \>rmont, and Secretary Thomp- 
son, of Indiana, were born, early in the century, of all those 
appliances, devices, inventions, and discoveries that have an- 
nihilated space and time, made gravitation, heat, light, and 
electricitv the slaves of man, abolished pain, revolutionized 
industrv. and indefinitely enlarged the boundaries of human 
happiness, not one existed. 

There was no railroad nor telegraph; no telephone, no 
typewriter nor sewing-machine; no chloroform nor photogra- 
phy. Every acre of grain was sowed broadcast ; reaped with 
the sickle and the cradle, and threshed with the "dull thunder 
of the alternate flail." Friction matches were unknown. Fire, 
the indispensable agent of civilization, was started by strik- 
ing sparks from flint and steel into tinder, and preserved by 
covering coals in the ashes at night. Kings, with their treas- 
uries, could not obtain the comforts and conveniences in their 
palaces which the most parsimonious landlord now furnishes 



174 



A Dream of Empire. 175 

without question for the unpretent ous cottage of the black- 
smith and the carpenter. Life seems quite inconceivable un- 
der the conditions of 1 800, and we reflect with incredulity that 
now no triumph over Nature remains to be won except the 
conquest of the sky. 

One hundred years ago the Mississippi, from the mouth 
of Red River to the Lake of the Woods, was geographically 
the western frontier of the United States. Historicallv, the 
pioneers of Ohio and the Northwestern Territory and the 
unborn States of Indiana and Illinois were descending the 
declivity of the Appalachian Mountains and disappearing in 
the forests whose solitudes extended from Fort Dearborn to 
Natchez. 

Beyond the Mississippi to the Pacific was an undiscov- 
ered country, under the dominion of France, England, Mex- 
ico, and Spain ; a mysterious region of unexplored deserts, of 
illimitable prairies and plains; of nameless rivers and colossal 
mountain ranges; the land of dreams, of romance and adven- 
ture, as unknown as the interior of Africa to-day. St. Louis, 
New Orleans, and Pensacola were foreign towns, and the name 
•of Chicago, now one of the chief cities of the world, was not 
written on the map. 

The entire population of the Union was about the same 
as that of the State of New York in 1899. Its area was not 
much in excess of 800,000 square miles, and its organic law 
liad no provisions for acquiring foreign territory, for hold- 
ing colonial dependencies, nor for the incorporation of alien 
communities. 

Then, as now, there were paleozoic statesmen, hair-split- 
ting metaphysical politicians, costive legislators, brakemen on 
the express train of American destiny, phrase-mongers hurl- 



176 John James Ingalls. 

ing the derisive epithet of imperialism at the irresistible col- 
umn of migration, impelled by the earth-hunger which is the 
characteristic of our race, that was moving westward to the 
Rockv Mountains and the Pacific. 

The foundation of the "Empire of the West" was laid 
by the purchase in 1S03, for $15,000,000, of the Province of 
Louisiana, which more than doubled the national domain, 
adding 1,171,931 square miles, comprising Alabama and Mis- 
sissippi north of parallel 31 degrees, all of Louisiana, Arkansas, 
Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota west of the Mississippi, Nebraska, 
North and South Dakota. Kansas exccin ihf southwest corner 
south of the Arkansas River, Colorado, Montana, Wyoming 
east of the Rocky Mountains, Oklahoma and the Indian Terri- 
torv. This stupendous acquisition, now the granary of the 
world, the inexhaustible storehouse of the base and precious 
metals, rich in every element of present prosperity and far 
richer in everv element of future opulence, was denounced by 
Josiah Ouincv, of Massachusetts, when Louisiana was admitted, 
as a virtual dissolution of the Union, justifying all the States 
in preparing for amicable or violent separation. 

The annexation of Florida by treaty with Spain in 18 19, 
of Texas by joint resolution of Congress in 1845, of Utah, 
Nevada, Arizona, western Colorado, and New Mexico by con- 
quest from Mexico and by the Gadsden Purchase, which added 
more than a million square miles to our possessions, were 
due to the determination of the South to retain control of 
the Senate for the protection of slavery; but by the opera- 
tion of economic laws, culminating in the War of the Rebel- 
lion, all except Florida have become integral parts of the 
Empire of the West. 



A DrEam of Empire. 177 

Great Britain in 1846 surrendered a doubtful claim to 
Oregon, Idaho, and Washington, and Russia, by treaty, 
March 30, 1867, ceded Alaska, comprising 577,390 square 
miles, for $7,200,000. So that the sun never sets on our 
boundaries, and when at eight his evening rays glow upon 
our western frontier at Behring Straits, his morning beams 
;gild the headlands of Maine. 

This enormous body politic, extending from the Ohio to 
the Pacific, and from Canada to the Gulf, known by the ge- 
neric term of "the West," is among the most extraordinary 
of the phenomena of the nineteenth century. 

In less than one hundred years the untrodden wilderness 
of 1800, ten times greater in extent than France, has become 
the abode of thirty million people residing in twenty-four 
States and three Territories, sending forty-eight senators to 
the National Congress, with agricultural productions that con- 
trol the food markets of the whole civilized world. 

Individual liberty, the practice of self-government, equal- 
ity of rights before equal laws, and equal opportunities in 
the struggle for existence have been the potential agencies 
that have abolished the frontier and subjugated the desert. 

The race that has wrought this transformation, conscious 
of a destiny not yet accomplished, pauses for an instant 
upon the shores of the Pacific, before entering upon its final 
career for the moral and material conquest of the world. 



HALLUCINATIONS OF DESPAIR. 



The gentleman who said the love of money was the root 
of all evil either had the epigram habit, and was the uncon- 
scious dupe of his own exaggerations, or else he spoke with- 
out reflection and from insufficient data. 

It was a hasty generalization which omitted from the 
catalogue of the generic causes of evil the love of power and 
glory, the hunger for fame, the passion for woman and the 
grape, the appetite for knowledge that is forbidden. 

There was no money in Eden. Adam drew no checks. 
Eve ran no bills. Evil in plenty exists among those who- 
are not disturbed by the volume or the ratio of their circu- 
lating medium. But even were the aphorism of the moralist 
true, which it is not, it would be no discredit to money. In 
a successful tmiverse evil is quite as indispensable as good. 
It keeps the procession going. Without evil progress would 
cease. 

It is the contest between the forces which would destroy,, 
and those that would uphold which keeps the planets in 
their orbits and hangs the constellations in the firmament. 

Without temptation virtue would expire from lack of 
exercise. Were evil extinct, there would no longer be any 
pretext for religion, nor any throne for the sovereign of 
the moral kingdom. Singing psalms, waving palm branches,. 
and taking constitutionals along the golden streets of the 

178 



Hallucinations of Despair. 179 

New Jerusalem would become monotonous if hell were abol- 
ished. To paraphrase Voltaire, were there no devil, it would 
be necessary for man to invent one. But this another story. 

Perhaps by the love of money the polemic meant the sor- 
did desire of wealth for its own sake, or for the purchase of 
guilty pleasures or the accomplishment of wicked designs. 

But the utmost ingenuity of the glossarian cannot change 
the fact that among all sources of earthly power the most 
potent, palpable, and beneficent is that which accompanies 
the possession of money honestly acquired and honorably 
employed. 

Some care nothing for ambition or renown, but every 
one must have money — manhood may forget the joys of 
youth and age sink into an apathy which is indifferent alike 
to the allurements of pleasure and the intoxication of success, 
but no one is so young or so old as not to want money. The 
necessity for cash begins with the germ and ends with the 
period at the end of the epitaph. 

The praises of poverty have been pronounced by the rich. 
Seneca wrote the eulogy of poverty on a table of gold, but 
nobody wants to be poor. Some philosopher has said that 
the way to have what you want is to want what you have; 
and another, that it is better not to wish for a thing than to 
have it; but money still remains the universal object of chief 
desire. The reason is obvious. For the individual, money 
means education, travel, books, leisure, superiority to the 
accidents of life, comely apparel, in health the best cook, 
in sickness the most skillful physician, the happiness of those 
beloved, the luxury of doing good. For society it means libra- 
ries, museums, parks, galleries of art, hospitals, universities, 



i8o (Dii.N James Ingalls. 

comfort for the unfortunate, splendor for the rich, every thin <; 
that distinguishes civiHzation from barbarism. 

The aggregated wealth of the United States is estimated 
to be about seventy-five hundred million dollars. Divided 
equally per capita, each person would have in the neighbor- 
hood of twch'e hundred dollars, and the idea seems to be 
gaining ground that ever\- man wlu) has more than this is 
to that degree culpable in that he is feloniously in possession 
of what morally belongs to somecjne else. 

All questions in our system, except tliuse of theology, 
are political, and come at last to the ballot-box for decision. 
It is a government of numbers, and the majority liave k-ss 
than twelve hundred tlollars apiece. As tilings are going 
on now, tlie time is not far otT when the man with a hundred 
millions may be required to show Iiis title, and if there is any 
flaw, to make restitution. 

vSonie with much less apjjarently anticipate the crisis, 
and are alreadv making contributions to the conscience fund 
of the naticm, announcing that it is discreditable for any 
man to die rich. The millionaires are on the defensive. 
Thev are beginning to apologize. vSoine are expatriating, 
which is an involuntary tribute to public opinion. Indif- 
ferent to statutes, human or divine, they dread the daily 
newspaper and the verdict of the people. They belong to 
that class, engendered by superfluous wealth, among whom 
education has degenerated into flippant pedantry; religion 
into shallow mysticism ; politics into a vague passion for aris- 
tocracy; societv into a languid' mob of sycophants, the par- 
asites of English pederasts and French grisettes, with the 
spirit of Uriah Heep and the morals of Robert Macaire. 

For whatever hatred and exasperation there are against 



HALLUCy^JATIONS OF DESPAIR. igi 

wealth in the United States its possessors are directly respon- 
sible. They have brought it upon themselves bv their sense- 
less greed and folly and rapacity. Great rewards for great 
services is the law of our race. No genuine American grudges 
the fortune acquired by industry, courage, enterprise, fore- 
thought, and genius in fair competition and honest rivalry, 
whether it be a million or a hundred million. He does not 
believe that any limit can be fixed for individual acquisi- 
tion, nor that the wealth of the rich is the cause of the pov- 
erty of the poor, nor in taking from those who have and 
giving to those who have not. Least of all does he accept 
those vagaries of the impotent, which would deprive ambition 
of its incentive and labor of its reward, and instead of lifting 
all to the level of the highest, would drag all down to the 
standard of the lowest. 

The Osage tribe of Indians, whose fertile reservation lies 
between Kansas and the Creek country, is the richest commun- 
ity in the world. Their per capita of wealth is more than ten 
times greater than that of the most opulent civilized nation. 

They number about 1,500. They have in the United 
States Treasury nearly eight million dollars, derived mainly 
from the sale of superfluous lands, drawing interest at the 
rate of 7 per cent. They own in addition nearlv one mil- 
lion five hundred thousand acres of woodland, farms, and 
pastures, worth not less than ten dollars an acre. 

Each Osage Indian, man, woman, and child, is worth at 
least fifteen thousand dollars. Every familv, upon a division, , 
would possess on an average sixty thousand dollars. It is 
held and owned in common. All their industries are "nation- 
alized." The Government takes care of their propertv, super- 
intends their education and religion, provides food and cloth- 



1 82 John James Ingalls. 

ing, protects the weak from the aggressions of the strong, and 
abolishes as far as it may the injustice of destiny. All have 
equal rights; none have special privileges. They toil not. 
neither do they spin. The problems of existence are solved 
for them. The rate of wages, the hours of labor, the unearned 
increment, the rapacity of the monopolist, the wrongs of the 
toiler, the howl of the demagogue do not disturb nor perplex 
them. They have ample leisure for intellectual cultivation 
and development, for communion with Nature and for the 
contemplation of art, for the joys of home, but they remain — 
Osage Indians. 

Socialism and communism are the prescriptions of those 
who have failed. They are the hallucinations of despair. 
They have been tried and found wanting. Instead of being 
novelties, they are the refuse and debris of history. Civili- 
zation has been built on their ruins. 



SOCIALISM IS IMPOSSIBLE. 



The radical error of socialism is the assumption that 
there is some power in society above and beyond that of 
individuals of which society is composed. 

Government and the State are described as independent 
political beings, entirely apart from the people. 

Government ownership of railroads, nationalization of 
the means of production and industrial collectivism are phrases 
at once shallow, dishonest, and misleading. A nation is a 
voluntary association of individuals, and government is the 
agency by which its affairs are conducted. 

The United States is a nation, and its Government^ con- 
sists of a president and the Congress, chosen by a majority 
of the voters, and judiciary, nominated by the executive and 
confirmed by the Senate. 

Even the wayfaring man, though a fool, must know that 
it is impossible for the Government of the United States 
to own railroads, or the means of production, or to carry 
on the industries of the country. It has no power except 
that which is conferred by the people. The money in its 
treasury is contributed by the people. For its acts it is 
responsible to the people as a servant to his master. The 
power of a State is the aggregate strength of its inhabitants, 
as its wealth is the sum total of their possessions. 

All the work of the human race since creation has been 

done by indiviuals, and progress has been greatest where 

183 



1 84 John James Ingalls. 

man has been most free. The inventions and improvements 
which have di^ified humanity: the intellectual triumphs 
which have elevated and ennobled it; ilu' heroism, virtue, 
and self-sacrifice which have consecrated it, are all the result 
of individual effort. 

Destiny condemns the vast majority of men in everv com- 
munity to mediocrity. The few succeed; the manv fail. The 
glittering rewards, emoluments, and prizes of life do not ap- 
pear to be equitably distributed. 

The race is to the swift ; the battle to the strong. Fame, 
wealth, power, luxury, ease and, happiness arc to the multi- 
tude a mocking dream. Xinety-seven out of every hundred 
American citizens die penniless. 

These are the advocates and propagandists of socialism. 
Their programme is the forcible redistribution of the assets 
of society. It proposes to substitute the tyranny of the 
mob for the tyranny of the monarch, and to take bv force 
from those who have and give to those who have not; to 
obliterate all organic distinctions among men, and to con- 
found the moral and intellectual limitations of the race. It 
is an attempt by human enactment to abrogate and repeal 
the laws of God. 

The public ownership of railroads merely means that 
the majority of the people, who do not own them, shall take 
them from the possession of the minority, who do, bv pur- 
chase, or theft, or confiscation, and have them operated by 
the "Government" for the benefit of the "State." The 
railroads of the United States have cost, perhaps, ten thou- 
sand million dollars, an amount more than five times greater 
than the entire money circulation of the country. How the 
"Government," being a pauper, is to pay this sum, except 



SociAusM Is Impossible. 185 

by compelling its citizens to surrender their accumulations 
also, or how the "Government" is to maintain and [operate 
them, except by precisely the same agencies through which 
they are now carried on, does not appear. Government is 
worst served than any other employer of labor on earth. It 
pays higher wages for less service, and the waste and idle- 
ness are incredible. The sense of personal responsibility 
in the employee is entirely lost, and although the majority 
receive more money than ever in their lives before, they 
continually complain of the stinginess of Congress, and in- 
trigue for higher compensation, longer vacations, and unearned 
promotion. 

It is not exaggeration to say that any one of half a dozen 
great railroad managers in the country, if allowed to carry 
on the Government as a private business is conducted, could 
pay the pensions, the interest on the public debt, support 
the Army and Navy, construct the public buildings, pay all 
salaries, maintain the diplomatic service, and carrv the mails 
for 75 per cent of what it now costs the taxpayers, and make 
a great fortune for himself besides, every year. If Govern- 
ment can hardly conduct the limited functions it now per- 
forms, what would be the result of an attempt to control 
the complex interests of all social life under the management 
of those who had failed in the successful administration of 
their personal affairs? 

The advocates of socialism are in the habit of pointing 
to the Post Office Department as an illustration of their 
theories, and of the tendency of vStates toward collectivism. 

On the contrary, the mail service of the United States is a 
typical, burdensome, and irresponsible monopoly of the most 
offensive description. Beyond appointing a host of officials to 



1 86 John James Ingalls. 

collect, pouch, dispatch, receive, and distribute the letters, 
papers, and parcels, the Government has nothing whatever to 
do with their transmission. They are conveyed by railroads, 
steamboats, stage-coaches, and private contractors at extortion- 
ate rates, some trains getting the entire cost of maintenance 
and operation from their receipts from the Post Office. The 
Government pays an average of 8 cents the pound for an aver- 
age haul of four and one-half miles, while the express companies 
carry merchandise from New York to Chicago, a thousand miles, 
for $3.00 per hundred pounds, and some transcontinental lines 
will take goods from New Orleans to San Francisco for 8-10 of i 
cent the pound; while Government, by law, compels the citi- 
zens to pay for carrying their letters at the rate of $610 the ton. 
As a matter of fact, it is much nearer $r,ooo the ton, for very 
few letters weigh the ounce which may be taken for 2 cents 
postage. 

And not only so, but the Government renounces all liability 
for the safe delivery of the property which it compels the 
citizen to intrust to its charge, except to the extent of $10 
when it is registered. And this is the basis upon which social- 
ism would have all the business of the country conducted. 

Any merchant who treated his customers as the United 
States treats its citizens in the postal service would be 
promptly adjudged a bankrupt and sent to the penitentiary 
It cannot be denied that some aspects of individualism are 
not altogether lovely. Unrestrained competition has engen- 
dered a herd of moral monsters with the rapacity of the 
shark, the greed of the wolf, the cunning of the fox, the feroc- 
ity of the tiger, and the ingenuity of the devil. 

But these socialism could neither banish nor destroy. 
No change^in the social order can extirpate selfishness or 



Socialism Is Impossible. 187 

eliminate the evil propensities of man. These are beyond 
statute or ordinance. They can be reached only by con- 
science, and the reformation of the individual must come 
from within. 

America has been the paradise and the nineteenth century 
the golden age of individualism. At no other place or time 
has the world offered richer prizes or freer field to capacity, 
courage, and intelligence. There have been errors and evils. 
Perfection is still remote, but there has been greater progress 
in science, in popular education, in the means of livelihood, 
in sanitation, in the means of communication, in the con- 
quest over the mysteries of the universe, than in all the cent- 
uries that preceded. We have become the richest and most 
powerful nation because every man has been left free to be 
master of himself, to improve his condition, to obtain superior 
reward for superior merit. 

And this vast material development has been accom- 
panied by unprecedented activity of the moral and altruistic 
energies of the race. Never have religion, charity, and self- 
sacrifice done so much to alleviate human wretchedness or 
wealth been consecrated to nobler use. Colleges, univer- 
sities, technical schools, offer free instruction to the hum- 
blest. Parks, galleries, and museums afford the means of 
recreation to the poorest. Hospitals for the sick, retreats 
for the infirm, asylums for the unfortunate, exemplify the 
Golden Rule, and justify the faith that the brotherhood of 
man is not an empty formula or a derisive fiction. Society 
is a fortuitous and accidental aggregation of individuals. 
Societies have done nothing in this world, nor ever will. The 
fundamental fact of Clmstian civilization is the immeasurable 
value of the individual soul. 



1 88 John James Ingalls. 

Socialism is the final refuge of those who have failed 
in the struggles for life. It is the prescription of those who 
are born tired. It means the survival of the unfit, and the 
inevitable result would be degeneration. It would deprive 
ambition of its incentive, industry of its stimulus, excellence 
of its supremacy, and character of its reward. 

Individualism would lift all to the level of the highest. 
Socialism would drag all down to the level of the lowest. 
Individualism is progress and life. Socialism is stagnation 
and death. 



MEN ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL. 



The interest of the people in the social crisis is evinced 
by numerous letters from thoughtful and intelligent cor- 
respondents, who offer solutions of industrial problems and 
remedies for the misery and poverty which are the heritage 
of so large a portion of the human race. 

The single tax, the abolition of rents, the reduction of 
profits, the prohibition of interest, free trade, free silver, 
sumptuary laws, socialism, communism, and anarchy all have 
their advocates, whose sincerity entitles their theories to re- 
spectful consideration. 

Like a despondent patient, long ill, who has lost confi- 
dence in the faculty and their prescriptions, the wretched 
and unfortunate are patronizing political apothecaries with 
their patent medicines and consulting fetich doctors and 
voodoos with their cabalistic divinations. 

Much of the prevalent discontent no doubt springs from 
a perverted constitution of the nature of human liberty 
and the meaning of human equality. 

The glittering generalities of Thomas Jefferson, that all 
men are created equal, and that the rights to life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable, have been the 
texts for many injurious instructions. They are rhetorical 
flourishes, meaningless to the gentleman on the scaffold and 
in Sing Sing who pursues the fleeting phantom of happiness 

with the jimmy of the burglar and the dagger of the assassin. 

1 89 



190 John James Ingalls. 

Men are not created equal physically, morally, or intel- 
lectually, nor in aptitude, opportunity, nor condition. 

It is perhaps accurate to say that of the fifteen hundred 
million inhabitants of the earth no two are created equal. 
Nature is incapable of uniformity, and detests equality as 
much as she abhors a vacuum. One is made to honor, an- 
other to dishonor, as one star difTereth from another star in 
glory. 

History is a series of repetitions. Those who have failed 
in life blame ever\'body but themselves. The complaint 
against fate is as old as Adam. It will end only with the 
epitaph of humanity. The distinctions between men were 
established by act of God, and they cannot be abolished by 
act of Congress. 

Were all these panaceas enacted into statutes, all bar- 
riers thrown down, all obstacles removed, all burdens lifted, 
and the whole constituency lined up for a fresh start, the 
result would be the same. 

Were all wealth of the country equally distributed, there 
would be about Si, 200 per capita. Could the assets of the 
Nation be divided pro rata, share and share alike, the first 
day of Januarv, igoo, by the close of the century the soul 
of the philanthropist would be shocked by the same spec- 
tacle of inequality existing now. Some would be in the cab, 
some on the foot-board, some in private cars, and others 
walking the ties in search of a dry culvert for the night, and in 
six months more the reformer of the wrongs of society would 
demand in the name of justice another division. 

It seems trite and superfluous to affirm that the equality 
of man can mean nothing more than the equality of rights 
before just laws and equality of opportunity in the race of 



Men Are Not Created Equal. 191 

life. Every man has the absolute right to the use of his 
faculties and opportunities to the utmost to better his con- 
dition and increase his fortune so long as he does not inter- 
fere with the free exercise of the same rights by everybody 
else. 

It should be apparent also upon the most superficial re- 
flection that political liberty by maintaining equality of rights 
must inevitably result in greater inequality of condition 
than any other system. All fetters are cast off. Every- 
thing goes. Life is a grand free-for-all. There is no ped- 
igree, nor caste, nor prerogative. The sway-backed mule 
has the same rights on the track as Ormonde and Iroquois, 
the monarchs of the turf. The petted canary and the scream- 
ing jay have equal rights in the atmosphere with the condor 
soaring above the inaccessible peak of Chimborazo or the 
frigate bird that sleeps at midnight with pinions outspread 
upon the tempest, a thousand leagues from shore. 

In the exercise of his powers and the enjoyment of free- 
dom can laws assign any frontier beyond which a man may 
not pass? In the kingdom of knowledge can any bound be 
set to learning and wisdom? Can society say to Edison or 
Tesla, "You shall explore the mysteries of Nature no further, 
lest you infringe the equality of man"? 

Can we say what reward they shall receive for the inestim- 
able benefits they have conferred upon the world? 

Can legislators, or conventions, or tribunals assess the 
wages that Melba shall receive for her songs, or Kipling for his 
stories, or Choate for his argument, or Bryan for his eloquence, 
or Irving for his impersonations ? 

The world is eager for excellence. It pays for what it wants. 
There has been no time when the man or woman who can do 



192 John JamEs Ingalls. 

anything better then anybody else was so sure of instant rec- 
ognition and ample emolument as now. It is the essential cor- 
ollarv to liberty that courage, energy, sagacity, and dexterity 
should succeed and that brains should win the victories and 
secure the prizes of life. Reason rebels at the thought of the 
establishment of arbitrary restrictions upon the activity of our 
powers and the full enjoyment of their acquisitions. 

The time will never come when the race will not be to the 
swift and the battle to the strong. Indolence will never have 
the same wage as thrift nor ignorance the same reward as 
wisdom. 

Ambition will never lose its incentive nor genius its sui)rc'iu- 
acv. Povertv and debt will never be abolished by edict, nor 
will those who have failed in life, having had equal opportunity, 
take charge of the affairs of those who have suceeded. The 
dreams of Jack Cade and his kindred reformers will never be 
realized. 

The popular notion now seems to be that there is just so 
nmch wealth in the world; that life is a struggle to see who 
shall grab the most, and that the man who acquires a fortune 
has obtained by crime what belongs to someone else. 

No mistake could be greater. The acquisition of a million 
bv invention; by ministering to new wants; by novel applica- 
tions in science to the needs of daily life; by enterprise and 
skill in mining, agriculture, and manufactures, is practically 
the creation of wealth — the development of value that but for 
the exertions of its possessors would have had no existence. 

The prosperous do not complain. The strong can take care 
of themselves. It is the feeble who must be lifted up and sup- 
ported, and to them the State owes its obligations. It must 
protect the weak from oppression, the poor from extortion. 



Men Are Not Created Equal. 193 

the humble from injustices. It must secure universal diffusion 
of civil and political rights, with vigorous guarantees for the 
security of life, liberty, and property. It must provide edu- 
cation for the ignorant, refuge for the defective, asylum .for the 
helpless, and give every man an equal chance to "get there" if 
he can. If he gets left, his name is "Dennis." 

Pompey buys a brush, whitewashes a fence, and earns fifty 
cents. 

Millet, with the same outlay, paints "The Angelus," which 
sells for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 

So long as Pompey has the right to paint "The Angelus" 
and Millet the right to whitewash the fence, neither has just 
ground for complaint. They have equal opportunity and must 
be content. 

But if a number of gentlemen combine and buy up all the 
brushes, and the lime, and the pigments, so that Pompey can- 
not whitewash nor Millet paint without their consent, both 
may justly claim that they have been deprived of their birth- 
right and are subject to degrading bondage and servitude. 

It seems inequitable that Patti should receive fifteen hun- 
dred dollars for a song, while the seamstress earns fifteen 
cents for a day's work making shirts in a sweat-shop. But if 
every woman had the voice of the prima donna, and only one 
woman in the world could make shirts, the situation would be 
reversed. The condition of the shirt-maker cannot be ame- 
liorated by changing political institutions, or methods of taxa- 
tion, or by nationalizing manufactures. If wages are to be 
increased, the number of seamstresses must be diminished or 
people must wear more shirts. 

The argument of Henry George for the abolition of private 
ownership of land is that value is given to land by the landless. 



194 John James Ingalls. 

The same is true of every^thing else. The value of all property 
comes from those who want it and do not have it. The value 
of shirts is given to them by the shirtless ; the value of diamonds, 
by the diamondless ; the value of railroads, by those who want 
to travel. 

The future will be richer than the past. Vast as has been 
the progress of the race, there are greater triumphs to be won 
by those that have eyes to see and ears to hear. 

The medicine for the ills of society must be found, therefore, 
in indi\idual cultivation and development, and the ultimate 
appeal must be to conscience and intelligence to protect liberty 
from the folly of its friends and the fury of its foes. 



THE POOR MAN'S CHANCE. 



One summer evening in pensive thought I wandered, fifty- 
odd years ago, with a schoolmate under the "button woods" in 
Haverhill, on the shore of the moonlit Merrimac. 

We talked long, as thoughtful schoolboys will, of the mys- 
teries of the universe and the enigmas of destiny. To our de- 
fective forecast the future appeared dark, troubled, and uncer- 
tain. Time's golden age was behind. The battle for fame and 
fortune was more desperate. 

We did not know, we could not know, no one knew, that we 
were standing at the portal or the threshold of the most mar- 
velous age of the world's history; an age of such incredible 
achievements in science, war, wealth, luxury, and national 
power, growth, and glory, that by comparison the most exag- 
gerated fables of fiction, the lamp of Aladdin, the purse of For- 
tunatus, the philosopher's stone, seem like the trivial com 
monplaces of the nursery, and the wildest hyperbole becomes 
tame and prosaic. 

Looking backward across the years since that moonlight 
stroll on the banks of the enchanted river, I do not see that I 
have been denied any right, privilege, or opportunity enjoyed 
by those who have drawn the great prizes in the lottery of life — 
we all had the same chance. If laws were unjust, all alike were 
their victims. If statutes were beneficent, none were debarred 
their advantage. Those who climbed the highest began the 
lowest. None were favored by legislation or influence. 



195 



196 John Jamks Ixgai.t.s. 

Lincoln and Grant, neither suspected of greatness, were 
waiting in homely indigence the summons that, ten years later, 
was to call them to immortal fame. Kdison, the mightiest 
magician of the forces of Nature, was a tramping telegrapher. 
Carnegie was a messenger-boy in Pittsburgh. Huntington was 
selling picks, nails, and horseshoes in Sacramento. Jay Gould 
was a book agent in Delaware County. The Rockefellers and 
the mob of plutocrats that excite the env'v and arouse the indig- 
nation of those who have failed, all began in the lowest and 
humblest ways of life. 

I had the same chance, and every boy of that time had the 
same chance. The world was all before me where to choose, 
and Providence my guide. I had the right to build railroads, 
or to go into \\'all Street and wreck them ; to invent the tele- 
phone; to write "Uncle Tom's Cabin"; to mine for gold and 
silver; to concoct patent medicines; to corner petroleum; to 
"bull " pork and wheat, like my cotemporaries. The only thing 
I lacked was brains. I didn't know how; so I went West and 
helped lay the foundations and build the superstructure of the 
great empire of the Northwest, and thus missed the whole show. 

And then, too, luck has much to do with success in life. He 
who leaves out the element of luck omits one of the most im- 
portant factors in the game. The dish of some is always bot- 
tom up when it rains. The luckiest man of this generation is 
Admiral Dewey. He threw double sixes twice in succession at 
Manila. 

What chance has the poor man in 1900.'' About the same, 
I should say, he had fifty years ago. In some ways rather bet- 
ter, if he can adapt himself to the changed conditions of society. 
Many avenues open then are now [shut. Many opportunities, 
once free, no longer exist. Competition is more selfish and 



The Poor Man's Chancu. 197 

strenuous, but the world was never so ready as now to pay for 
what it wants. There has been no time when the man or 
woman who can do anything better than anybody else was so 
sure of instant recognition and remuneration. 

Paderewski and Irving have just sailed away with fortunes 
earned by a few months of professional exhibition. I\Ime. 
Nordica received a thousand dollars for singing two songs that 
occupied ten minutes, while an equally meritorious seamstress 
earns twenty-five cents for ten hours' repulsive toil in a sweat- 
shop. Kipling gets more for a stanza than Milton for the copy- 
right of "Paradise Lost." Millet and Meissonier derived from 
the brush and the palette the revenues of the treasuries of 
kingdoms. 

The poor man's chance depends very much on what the 
poor man has to sell. If his stock in trade consists of untrained 
muscle, a dull brain, and sullen discontent, he will work for 
wages, dine from a tin bucket when the noon whistle blows, and 
die dependent or a mendicant. If he have courage, industry, 
enterprise, foresight, luck, and the willing mind, he will gain 
competence or fortune. He will establish his family in com- 
fort, educate his children and accustom them to the environ- 
ment of refined habits, which, after all, is the best of life. 

The real difference in men is not in want of opportunity, 
but in want of capacity to discern opportunity and power to 
take advantage of opportunity. 

This, at least, is certain: that in 1950 the celebrated schol- 
ars and teachers, the learned divines, the eloquent orators and 
statesmen, the foremost legislators and judges, the President 
who will have been inaugurated the year before, the great 
authors and poets and philosophers, the inventors and mer- 
chants and lords of finance, will be men who are now young, 



198 John James Ingalls. 

poor, and obscure, striving against obstacles that seem insu- 
perable to enter in at the strait gate that leads to fame and 
fortune. 

Society is reinforced from the bottom and not from the top. 
Families die out, fortunes are dispersed; the recruits come from 
the farm, the forge, and the work-shop, and not from the chib 
and the palace. Those who will control the destinies of the 
twentieth century are now boys wearing homespun and "hand- 
me-downs," and not the gilded youth clad in purple and line 
linen, and faring sumptuousl\- every day at vSherry's and Del- 
monico's. This is the poor man's chance. It is open to all 
comers. It is not a matter of law, or statute, or politics. 

Free silver, tariff, expansion, militarism, have nothing to 
do with it. What is needed is some legislation that will give 
brains to the brainless, tlirift to the thriftless, industry to the 
irresolute, and discernment to the fool. Till this panacea is 
discovered, the patient must minister to himself. 

The worst enemy of the poor man, except himself, is the 
trust, and of all forms of this odious tyranny the most intoler- 
able is the labor trust. The money trust kills the body, the 
labor trust kills the soul. It destroys the independence of the 
laboring man, effaces his individuality, cancels excellence, and 
substitutes brute force for intelligence. 

The right of labor to combine and to refuse to work for 
wages that employers are willing to pay is undeniable; but 
when strikers organize to prevent others from taking their 
places by violence and murder, destroying property and sub- 
jecting great companies to enormous inconvenience, hardship, 
and loss, they attack the fundamental rights of citizenship and 
become outlaws and criminals, who ought to be exterminated. 



THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 



When Voltaire said that if there were no God, it would be 
necessary for man to invent one, he formulated, unconsciously 
perhaps, the fundamental truth of existence. 

A universe without a God is an intellectual absurdity, which 
reason rejects spontaneously. God is indispensable. Fate, 
force, and blind chance do not satisfy the mind. If all the let- 
ters in the play of "Hamlet" were shaken in a dice-box and 
thrown at midnight in a tempest on the Desert of Sahara, they 
might fall exactly as they are arranged in the drama. It may 
be admitted that if Destiny kept on casting long enough, they 
would inevitably at some time so fall, which would render the 
Bard of Avon superfluous and unnecessary. But this does not 
disturb our belief in Shakespeare. 

Irrespective of creeds and theology, they are wise who 
would recognize God in the Constitution, because faith in a 
Supreme Being, in immortality and the compensations of 
eternity conduces powerfully to social order by enabling man 
to endure with composure the injustice of this world in the hope 
of reparation in that which is to come. 

Inasmuch as both force and matter are infinite and inde- 
structible, and can be neither added to nor subtracted from, it 
follows that in some form we have always existed, and that we 
shall continue in some form to exist forever. 

Whence we came into this life no one knows nor cares. 
Evolution, metempsychosis, reincarnation, are not beliefs. 



199 



200 John James Ixgalls. 

They are parts of speech, interesting only to the compiler of 
iexicons. 

Our appearance here is not voluntary. We are sent to this 
planet on some mysterious errand without being consulted in 
advance. Many of us would not have come had the opportu- 
nity to decline, with thanks, been presented. 

To multitudes life is an inconceivable insult and injury, 
an intolerable afTront ; torture and wretchedness indescribable 
from poverty, disease, grief, Fortune's slings and arrows ; wrongs 
deliberately inflicted by some unknown malignant power, as 
Job was tormented by the devil, with the consent of God, just 
to try him, till at last the troubled patriarch cursed the day he 
was bom. 

Worst of all, we are sent here under sentence of death. The 
most grievous and humiliating punishment man can inflict up- 
on the criminal is death. 

Human tribunals give the malefactor a chance. His crime 
must be proved. He can put in his defense. He can appear by 
attorney and plead and take appeal. But we are all condemned 
to death beforehand. The accusation and the accuser are 
unknown. An inexorable verdict has been pronounced and 
recorded in the secret councils of the skies. We are neither 
confronted with the witness nor allowed a day in court. From 
the hour of birth we are beset by invulnerable and invisible 
enemies, the pestilence that walketh in darkness and the de- 
struction that wasteth at noonday. Fatal germs, immortal 
bacilli, heaven-sent miracles, inhabit the air we breathe, the 
food we eat, the water we drink, poisoning where they fly and 
infecting where they repose. 



The Immortality of the Soul. 201 

Science continually discloses malevolent agencies, hitherto 
undetected, which vainly tn^ to extirpate, or to build frail and 
feeble barriers against their depredations. 

Theology complacently announces that for the majority of 
the human race this tough world is the prelude to an eternity 
in hell. If any trembling sinner desires comfort and consola- 
tion in these awful miseries, let him read the sermon of Jon- 
athan Edwards from the text, "Their feet shall slide in due 
time." 

Hell would be preferable to annihilation, it may be, but 
this alternative does not satisfy those who repeat the everlast- 
ing interrogatory of Job, "If a man die, shall he live again?" 

Nature, like a witness in contempt, stands mute. Science 
returns from its remotest excursions, shakes its head, and, 
smiling, puts the question by. Christ contented Himself with 
a few vague and unsatisfactory generalities: "Whoso liveth 
and believe th in Me shall never die;" "In My Father's house 
are many mansions." Saint Paul, the greatest of the teach- 
ers of Christianity, could only respond by a misleading analogv. 
He knew the wheat which is reaped is not that which is sown . 
The harvest is a succession, not a resurrection. 

The evidences of a superintending moral purpose and 
design in the affairs of men are faint and few. The wicked 
prosper, the good suffer. The problems of sin, pain, and evil 
are insoluble. Visiting the sins of the fathers upon the chil- 
dren to the third and fourth generation, making the innocent 
suffer for the offenses of the guilty, is an unjust and cruel law 
that ought to be repealed. Civilization has long since rejected 
the principle from human jurisprudence. Even treason, the 
highest crime known to its code, no longer works corruption 
of blood or forfeiture of estate. 



202 JoTix Tames Ingai.ls. 

Unless man is immortal, the moral universe, so far as he is 
concerned, disappears altogether. If he does not survive the 
grave, it makes no difference to him whether there be God or 
devil, or heaven or hell. And it must be not only a survival, 
but with a continuity of consciousness as well, if the evil are to 
be punished and the good rewarded hereafter. To inflict the 
penaltv of violated law upon a being who does not know that 
he has offended, is not punishment, but revenge. Conscious 
identitv may not be a necessary condition of intelligence, but 
it is essential in morals. It is conceivable that a being may 
know without knowing that he knows; but he cannot sin with- 
out knowing that he sins, nor be punished unless he knows 
for what wrong he suffers. 

Frederick W. Robertson, the eminent English divine, closes 
one of his discourses by saying : 

"Search through tradition, history, the world within you and the 
world without — except in Christ, there is not the shadow of a shade of 
proof that man survives the grave." 

Many years ago I heard a distinguished American orator 
deliver a lecture upon the evidences of immortality outside the 
Bible. In the stress and pressure of the closing days of a short 
session of Congress, he held the rapt and breathless attention 
of an immense audience, comprising all that was most cultured, 
brilliant, and reno\vned in the social and official life of the 

capital. 

He dwelt with remarkable effectiv^eness and power upon 
the fact that nowhere in Nature, from the highest to the low- 
est, was an instinct, an impulse, a desire implanted, but that 
ultimately were found the conditions and the opportunities 
for its fullest realization. He instanced the wild fowl that, 
moved by some mysterious impulse, start on their prodigious 



The Immortality of the Soul. 203 

migrations from the frozen fens of the Pole and reach at last 
the shining South and the summer seas; the fish that from 
tropic gulfs seek their spawning-grounds in the cool, bright 
rivers of the North ; the bees that find in the garniture of fields 
and forests the treasure with which they store their cells; and 
even the wolf, the lion, and the tiger that are provided with 
their prey. 

Turning to humanity, he alluded to the brevity of life ; its 
incompleteness ; its aimless, random, and fragmentary careers ; 
its tragedies, its injustice, its sorrows and separations. Then 
he referred to the insatiable hunger for knowledge ; the efforts 
of the unconquerable mind to penetrate the mysteries of the 
future; its capacity to comprehend infinity and eternity; its 
desire for the companionship of the departed; its unquench- 
able aspirations for immortality; and he asked, "Why should 
God keep faith with the beast, the bee, the fish, and the fowl, 
and cheat man?" 



THE CHARACTER OF GENERAL GRANT— 

AN ENIGMA. 



The character and destiny of Grant must always remain 
among the enigmas of history. 

No man ever did so much of whom so little could have been 
predicted. 

At the outbreak of the Civil War he had come nearly to 
middle life, having failed in ever}- undertaking, and was sunk 
in hopeless poverty and obscurity. 

He was destitute of those personal traits and qualities that 
attract and charm and make their possesor popular and 
beloved. 

Taciturn, diffident, and out of countenance with the world, 
he had few acquaintances, fewer friends, and no influential 
associates among the civil and military leaders of his time. 

There was not a county in the State of Illinois that did 
not contain, in 1861, some inhabitant who might have been 
more reasonably expected to have been commander-in-chief 
of the armies of the United States and twice its President, 
than this humble, indigent employee in the village store at 
Galena, Ulysses Simpson Grant. 

But in four years that dejected subordinate, upon whom 
Fortune seemed to have exhausted its resentment, had com. 
manded greater armies than Caesar, had fought more battles 
than Napoleon, and inscribed his name" among the foremost 
warriors of the world. 



The Character of General Grant. 205 

In personal intercourse he was sometimes so commonplace 
and prosaic that it was quite impossible to conceive of him a 
celebrity. He apparently placed no such estimation on him- 
self. He betrayed no exultation over his victories. He was 
not stirred by any passion for glory. He seemed devoid of 
imagination. He was incapable of apostrophizing the "Sun 
of Austerlitz," like Napoleon, or personifying the forty cent- 
tu-ies that looked down from the summit of the Pyramids. 
He was rather the imperturbable incarnation of plain, vigor- 
ous common sense, that would plan campaigns and fight bat- 
tles as if they were the ordinary occupations of daily life. 

He is popularly supposed to have been vacant and dull in 
conversation, but while at times irresponsive, again he was 
alert, vivacious, and almost inspired. 

Toward the end of his second term as President there was 
a dinner at the White House, The Electoral Commission was 
sitting to decide the disputed succession between Tilden and 
Hayes. It was a dark and ominous time. The most threat- 
ening since Appomattox. Revolution was imminent. Hen- 
ry Watterson had just issued his proclamation calling for 
one hundred thousand unarmed Kentuckians to assemble at 
Washington, January 8, to watch the count. The subsiding 
passions of the war, the frenzies of reconstruction, were inflamed 
to exasperation. The air was heavy with portents. 

After dinner the guests strolled into the library for coffee 
and cigars. Conversation turned to the situation and its per- 
ils. Its tone was depressed. The President said nothing, 
exhibited no interest, but smoked with deliberate stolidity. 
In a pause, Burnside turned to him and said: "Well, Gen- 
eral, what do you think — is there going to be any trouble?" 

After a perceptible interval, Grant appeared to emerge 



2o6 John James Ingalls. 

from a reverie. His features were transformed, and with a 
voice and manner as if he were at the head of a million men, 
and in a suppressed tone of indescribable intensity, he said: 
"No, there will be no trouble. But it has been one rule of my 
life to be always ready." 

As uttered, it was the most immense, impressive, and preg- 
nant sentence to which I ever listened. 

The talk instantly turned to other themes, and the Presi- 
dent became chatty, voluble, and reminiscent. He referred 
to the agonizing sick headache from which he suffered the 
night before the surrender, and how it left him on the receipt 
of Lee's note as suddenly as the "shutting of a jack-knife." 
He said he never saw General Lee but once after the close of 
the war. He called at the Executive Mansion as he was pass- 
ing through on his way to New York on some railroad trans- 
action for the State of Virginia. In the course of the conver- 
sation, Lee said he could hardly understand why he was sent 
on the mission, because he knew absolutely nothing about 
railroads. Grant stated that he replied jocularly that they 
together had considerable to do with railroads in Virginia for a 
number of years, but Lee never smiled ; which, the President 
thought, evinced a lack of "the saving sense of humor." 

Toward midnight some one started a discussion as to the 
most desirable period of life: infancy, with its helpless uncon- 
sciousness; childhood, with its innocent enjoyment; youth, 
with its passions; manhood, with its achievements; age, with 
its repose. Some preferred one and some another. Grant had 
relapsed into silence again. Logan appealed to him for his 
opinion. He pondered a moment and replied: "Well, so far 
as I am concerned, I should like to be born again." This 
seemed a very clever way of saying that he had enjoyed life all 



The Character of General Grant. 207 

the way through. Logan retorted that he knew of no man who 
stood in greater need of being bom again, and then we all went 
home. 



WHY CHRISTIANITY HAS TRIUMPHED. 



In estimating the population of the world at fifteen hun- 
dred millions, a fraction less than one-third, including Greek 
and Roman Catholics, Protestants, Armenians, Jews, and Abys- 
sinians, are catalogued as followers of Christianity. Of the 
thousand millions remaining, about three hundred millions, 
chiefly Chinese, profess Confucianism and Taoism, one hun- 
dred and forty millions are classified as devotees of Hindooism 
and Buddhism, one hundred and eighty millions of Moham- 
medanism, and fourteen millions, principally Japanese, of 
Shintoism; the rest are Polytheists in various degrees of 
barbarism. 

W^'orship is thus instinctive, inherent, and universal in the 
human race. Every religion has its own God, its code, and its 
creed. 

As nations advance in intelligence and morals, gods are 
dethroned, codes modified, and creeds abandoned. 

The God of the Puritans, Who was a consuming fire. Who 
hated sinners and condemned them to eternal torment in a 
hell of fire and brimstone, has gone with Jove and the other 
mythological monsters of antiquity to the lumber-room of 
histor\\ In His place we have now the paternal reign of a con- 
stitutional Monarch, a wise and benevolent Legislator, Who is 
subject to the limitations of the statutes which He himself has 
made. 

208 



Why Christianity Has Triumphed. 209. 

vSermons that congregations heard a century ago with awe 
and reverence would now excite indignation and abhorrence. 
Doctrines once deemed indispensable to personal salvation 
are rejected as an insult to the vSupreme Being. 

The clergyman who should announce his belief in the pre- 
destination of sinners to perdition, or the eternal damnation 
of unbaptized infants, would be an Ecclesiastical outlaw. 
Man has outgrown these horrible fictions and has invested 
God wdth higher and nobler attributes. 

Some philosopher has said that everyone's idea of God is 
an indefinitely enlarged conception of himself, and that we 
make our heaven and hell. 

In any event, the human element prevails largely in all the 
great religions of the earth. They are imperfect and defect- 
ive. They are disappointing in their results. If of divine 
origin, they do not accomplish what might be expected. Rev- 
elation discloses too much and not enough. Inspiration leaves 
unsaid what we most desire to know. 

Vice, crime, sin, and evil are rampant. Miserable mul- 
titudes everywhere are sunken in poverty, ignorance, and 
unspeakable degradation. To assume, therefore, as many do, 
that those who do not accept the social and political ideas of 
Christendom are pagans, and that all who reject our ethics 
and theology are heathen, is, perhaps, the most impressive 
exhibition of that intellectual arrogance which is the chief 
characteristic of our race. 

In considering the relative rank and value of the four great 
religious systems, they must be judged by their eft'ect upon 
society and their relations to the history of mankind. The 
spiritual element must be eliminated, because this concerns 
the indivdual exclusively, and is a matter where the stranger 



2IO John James Ixgalls. 

intermeddleth not. It is a vast theme of stupendous propor- 
tions, of which the wisest must speak with diffidence. 

One of the promises of the Decalogue is length of days 
"in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee," and national 
longevity is evidence of the smiles of approving Providence. 

The believers in Confucius have no reason to distrust their 
faith in his teachings. 

The historv of China goes back into the twilight of time. 
That vast empire has resisted the vicissitudes of destiny and 
the fatigues of the centuries. It has witnessed the birth and 
growth and decay of historic kingdoms, and survives in ven- 
erable grandeur to tempt the cupidity and injustice of nations 
that were unborn when China was in the maturity of its power. 

The Hindoo has perhaps reached loftier heights of abstract 
metaphysical speculation; but neither Buddhism, nor Confu- 
•cianism, nor Mohammedanism, nor Judaism, has set up the 
ideal standard for mankind to follow. 

It is claimed by the followers of Christianity that no other 
religion has exerted such immense influence upon government, 
society, and civilization. Its sanction rests entirely on the 
life, example, teachings, and death of Jesus of Xazareth, for 
whom theologians claim much more than He ever claimed 
Himself. He was poor, ignorant, and of dubious origin. He 
had no learning. It is not known that He could read or write. 
He left no manuscripts. His life to the age of thirty was 
passed in manual labor as a carpenter. His associates, male 
and female, were illiterate and obscure. He had no home, 
nor any domestic relations. He lived on alms, and led a harm- 
lessly vagrant life, sometimes in solitude, and then wandering 
about in the fields among the mountains and by the sea, talk- 
ing familiarly to His companions, to chance acquaintances, 



Why Christianity Has Triumphed. 2 1 1 

and delivering informal discourses to the crowds of rustics 
that gathered occasionally at the reports of His miracles. He 
healed the sick and raised the dead. 

He seemed to have special hatred for shams, pretenders, 
and hypocrites, and denounced them with violence; but to 
other sinners He was gentle and lenient. His public career 
was less than three years, and His recorded deeds and words 
would not fill two pages of a newspaper. They were repeated 
by word of mouth, and not permanently collected till nearly a 
century after His death. 

His life was pure and blameless, and He was crucified 
rather as the victim of political prejudice than as a martyr for 
His religious opinions. 

Whatever view may be held as to His divinity, He is the 
central character of human destiny, the one colossal figure of 
human history. Csesar and Herod and Pilate, the kings, con- 
querors, and philosophers of that day, are names. No one cares 
that they lived or died, but Christ remains the living and most 
potential force in modern society. 

When He announced the fatherhood of God and the broth- 
erhood of man, and the immeasurable value of the hum- 
blest human soul, He made kings and despots and tyrants 
impossible. 

He laid the foundation of democratic self-government and 
the sovereignty of the people. From His teachings have come 
the emancipation of childhood, the elevation of woman, and 
our rich and splendid heritage of religious, civil, and constitu- 
tional liberty. 

Indeed, without disparaging Confucius, Buddha, or Mo- 
hammed, it may be safe to assert that through Christianity 
alone has civilization come into the world. On the contin- 



212 John James Lxgalls. 

ued activity of its beneficent forces we must depend for its 
preservation ; for the completion of man s conquest over 
Nature; for the realization of the dream of the universal 
Republic. 



GETTYSBURG ORATION. 

1890. 



Mr. President : The Battlefield of Gettysburg! What a 
thronging tumult of emotions, of joy and grief, of triumph, of 
sadness, of defeat and final victory, rises in the heart at the 
repetition of that name, the Battlefield of Gettysburg! The 
high tide of the Rebellion broke upon these placid and fertile 
fields and along these reverberating and rocky steeps in a 
tumultuous surf of blood and flame that ebbed away to Appo. 
mattox. Three summer days changed the annals of this 
peaceful hamlet to an epoch never to be forgotten in the his- 
tory of the human race, and gave to this locality, hitherto 
unknown, an immortality like that of Marathon, of Marston 
Moor, and Waterloo. The orator who speaks, and who shall 
speak upon every recurrence of this anniversary so long as time 
shall endure, no matter how great his fame or his name, will be 
dwarfed by the stupendous tragedy that was enacted here, and 
will stand in the presence of that mighty and colossal shadow, 
that greatest victim of the war, who, almost within the sound of 
my voice from the spot where we now stand, dedicated this 
field as a final resting-place for those who here died that the 
Nation might live; and in obedience to that impulse and that 
instinct, the American people have assembled to-day, under 
the holiest impulse of the human heart, to contemplate and con- 
sider the profoundest and most insoluble mystery of human 
destiny — the insoluble problem of death. Those who died that 

213 



214 JoHx James Ixgalls. 

the Nation might live — and yet why should we assemble to 
scatter flowers above the dust of the dead, if iIrv are de- 
tached from us and from the interest that attaches them to 
us forever? We are all under sentence of death, under the 
sentence of an inexorable tribunal from whose verdict there 
is neither exculpation nor appeal. We have all been con- 
demned to die. There is no executive clemency. It is ap- 
pointed to all men once to die, and have we assembled here 
merely to honor with empty ceremonies these heroes of the 
Republic because they are dead' The insoluble mystery of 
death ! 

These have entered into the democracy of the dead. Those 
who lie about us are at last at peace in the republic of the grave, 
in the silent kingdom, in the domain of the voiceless; they are 
at peace and at rest ; for them the injustice of life has been 
expiated. For more than twenty-five years they have lain 
beneath the snows of winter and the verdure of spring and the 
splendor of summer, and each year we assemble to pay rever- 
ence and homage to their silent dust. 

"How sleep the brave who sink to rest 
By all their country's wishes blest? 
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, 
Returns to deck their hallowed mould, 
She there shall deck a sweeter sod 
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod." 

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. 

And thus it is that we have assembled twenty-five years 
after the last gun has been fired, twenty-five years after 
the hostile flag has been furled, to again pay the tribute of 
otir reverence and our homage and our respect to the dead that 
sleep in the cemetery upon the battlefield of Gettysburg. It is 
twenty-five vears, I said, since the last shot was fired; it is 



Gettysburg Oration. 215 

twenty-five years since the great hosts of freedom came from 
a thousand battlefields, from Gettysburg to the Gulf, and were 
marshalled for the last review. They assembled within the 
shadow of the great dome of the Capitol that they had pro- 
tected and saved. »- The air vibrated with the blare of bugles. 
and with the stirring blast of trumpets. The transitory and 
variable splendor of a vernal sun illuminated a pageant of impos- 
ing splendor and magnificence, and in that changing sky, red 
as its sunset and its dawn, white as its wandering clouds, and 
blue as its noonday deeps, and glittering as the constellations 
of its midnight abyss, above them flashed and floated and 
flamed the splendor of the flag. It was the birthday of a 
redeemed and regenerated Republic; a host that no man could 
number, like the sands of the sea or the stars of the sky for mul- 
titude, welcomed from window and casement, from balcony 
and platform and cornice with tumultuous acclaim, the victori- 
ous legions of Sherman, of Grant, of Logan, and of Hancock, 
while above all the hearts of men, over the breasts of women; 
and in the hands of children, and from the dome and tower 
and pinnacle and roof and spire, floated and flashed and 
flamed the glory of the flag. And then, between living walls, 
from morn till night, and from morn till night again, past the 
Chief Magistrate and his staff, with martial tread and the roll 
of vanishing drums, marched the soldiers of the Republic, from 
the valleys of the Kennebec, the Connecticut, the Hudson, the 
Ohio, and the Mississippi — a peaceful army to guard the homes, 
enforce the laws, and defend the honor of a people determined 
to be free ; and above those resolute squadrons with glittering 
bayonets and gleaming swords, and above the faded and elo- 
quent ensigns that were inscribed with the names of the battles 



■2 1 6 John James Ingalls. 

in which they had been borne to victory, flashed and flamed 
the redeemed and regenerated glory of the flag. 

Fellow-citizens, it was their flag. Had it not been for their 
sacrifices, for their devotion and that of their comrades that 
sleep the last sleep in the cemeteries of the Republic to-day, 
whose graves have been decorated with flowers, this flag would 
Jiave been a dishonored rag. [Applause.] 

WHAT REBElv SUCCESS WOULD HAVE MEANT. 

The centennial anniversary of the establishment of the 
Republic would not have been celebrated. The geography of 
this continent would have been changed. The United States of 
America would have disappeared from the map, and in its place 
would have appeared an aggregated and incoherent mass of 
petty provinces, discordant and belligerent, succeeding that 
•great nationality whose flag now waves triumphant from tlie 
Saskatchewan to the Rio Grande, and from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific. [Applause.] Had more than two million^of the soldiers 
of the Republic not ofi"ered their lives, their health, their strength 
for the protection of the flag, we should to-day be celebrating 
the twenty-ninth anniversary of the founding of the Southern 
Confederacy, founded on secession and disunion; the Declar- 
ation of Independence would have been an antiquarian relic; 
the Fourth of July would ha\-e been the jubilee of despots ; the 
Constitution would have been like the laws of the Medes and 
Persians, and the glories and the traditions of our history 
would have been dispersed and separated like the trivial assets 
of an insolvent partnership ; the sacrifices and the achievements 
of the pioneers of our civilization would have been in vain; 
Bunker Hill and Ticonderoga and Yorktown, the heroes of all 
our wars, the eloquence of all our sages, the achievements of 



Gettysburg Oration. 



217 



the fathers, the eloquence of Wirt and Henry and Clay, and 
Calhoun and Webster, all that is inspiring in our historu, all 
that is resplendent in our example, would be sentences to-day 
in the school-books, like legends of the nations that are dead. 
Had these comrades whose graves we have decorated with 
flowers to-day not died for the flag, liberty upon this planet 
would have been an epithet, and popular govenment would 
have been a definition; freedom of thought, of conscience, 
would have been empty phrases, whose meaning would have 
been sought in the dictionaries, and not in the statute-books of 
a free people; our past would have been a catastrophe contem- 
plated by tyrants with derision, and by their victims with 
despair; our present would have been an armistice, with stand- 
ing armies in every capital, and garrisons and fortresses and 
custom-houses upon every frontier; our future would have been 
an abysss which no foresight could predict, and against whose 
dangers no safeguard could have been found. 

Other wars, Mr. President, and comrades of the Grand 
Army of the Republic, have been fought for conquest, they 
have been fought for ambition, they have been fought for 
revenge, they have been fought for dynasties and for thrones ; 
but no such passions animated the souls of the soldiers of the 
Republic. They went to battle for ideas; they endured the 
march, the bivouac, hospitals, wounds, diseases, hardships, 
and death, to save our cities from sack, our homes from spolia- 
tion, our flag from dishonor, and our country from distraction, 
m order that all men everywhere might be free, that the vStates 
might be indestructible, that the Union might be indissoluble, 
and that this Nation might be perpetual. [Applause.] 



2i8 John James Ingalls. 

IF THE SOUTH HAD TRIUMPHED. 

Ideas, comrades of the Grand Army of the Republic, are 
immortal; they never die; they cannot be annihilated; foes do 
not destroy them. It may be made inconvenient or uncom- 
fortable to express them, but they never become extinct, and I 
have often thought what would have been my emotions, what 
would have been your emotions, had the endeavors of those 
who led the Rebellion in 1861 been finally and fully accom- 
plished. Suppose the dome of the Capitol had stooped to its 
base, and its ruin had been mirrored in the placid wave of the 
Potomac that flows at the foot of its declivity; that Robert 
Tombs and those who followed him had fulfilled his insolent 
menace and called the roll of his slaves in the shadow of Bunker 
Hill ; that slavery had been made the fundamental law of the 
Republic; that its glorious stars had set in disgrace and defeat; 
that the Union had been held to be a rope of sand depending 
upon the whim or the caprice of any member of the Confeder- 
ation — what would have been our emotions? What would have 
been vour emotions had the lost cause prevailed? I confess 
for mvself that I should never have ceased to hope, to strive, 
that sometime, as the result of some desperate battle in the 
future, the Union, glorious and resplendent, would have been 
restored. [Applause.] I should not have failed to have kept 
in some secure but sacred repository the Stars and Stripes 
which were the symbol of the honor and the emblem of the 
glory of mv country, to which I should have taught my chil- 
dren to return with patriotic solicitude and affectionate vener- 
ation. [Loud applause.] I said, fellow-citizens, ideas are im- 
mortal, and I am willing to concede to others the same rights,, 
the same privileges, the same beliefs that I claim for myself;, 
and in view of the occurrences of the last few days in the ex- 



Gettysburg Oration. 219 

tinct capital of the extinct Confederacy, I am inclined to be- 
lieve that the only regret that our adversaries feel over the 
result of that controversy is that they failed to succeed. 
[Great applause.] 

Robert E. Lee was one of the greatest soldiers of the age. 
He was a man of the loftiest personal character, of incorrupt- 
ible private life, so far as I am advised. He had a lineage that 
dated back to the morning of patriotism in the American Re- 
public. He was a soldier without fear and without reproach. 
Two days before he surrendered his commission he said, in a 
letter to his son : 

' I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than the disso- 
lution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we 
complain of ; I am wiUing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preser- 
vation. Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Consti- 
tution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance, and 
surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be 
broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended 
for perpetual union, so expressed in the preamble, and for the establish- 
ment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by 
revolution, or the consent of the people in convention assembled. It is 
idle to talk of secession. Anarchy would have been established, and not 
government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and the other 
patriots of the Revolution." 

Had Robert H. Lee adhered to those lofty and ennobling 
sentiments, he would to-day have been the foremost citizen of 
this Republic in the estimation of its people. He was offered 
the command of the Union armies. He had been educated at 
the expense and under the sanction of the Government. For 
twenty-five years his sword had been drawn under the flag ; he 
had taken an oath to support and protect the Constitution of 
the United Statesagainst all enemies, foreign and domestic; 
and yet, within two days after that letter was written, he 
resigned his commission, he violated his oath to support the 



220 JoHx James Ixgalls. 

Constitution, the Government, and the laws of the United 
States, and took the leadership of the most causeless rebellion 
that has ever occurred since the devil rebelled against the stat- 
utes of heaven. [Prolonged applause.] And yet, bv a mon- 
strous object-lesson in treason, in disloyaltv, in perjurv. in vio- 
lation of faith, of public and private honor, upon the verv dav 
that has been, for a quarter of a century, made sacred bv the 
common concurrence of the loyal and patriotic people of the 
Republic for the consecration of the graves of llie Union dead, 
those who profess to have accepted the results of the war in 
good faith, who profess that they had furled the flag of treason 
and rebellion forever, who profess that they have come bick 
under the Constitution and laws of the United States with 
honor and patriotism, choose this occasion of all other anni- 
versaries in the three hundred and si.\ty-five days of the vear. 
with everv augmentation of insolence, to sav to the rising: eren- 
eration of the South, this is an example which thcv should 
copy ! 

THE FLAG OF TREASOX. 

A Confederate flag is placed in the bronze hand of the 
statue of Washington. [Cries of "Shame!"] \\'hat wonder 
that the shadow and spirit of the mighty dead did not stir 
the unconscious and pathetic dust at Mount Vernon to cry out 
against the sacrilege and the blasphemy! And everywhere all 
over the capital of the Confederacy, from tower and dome, 
and from roof and pinnacle and spire, flamed the glorj- of the 
stars and the bars; and we are told that God alone knows 
which was right. 

I have no desire upon this sacred occasion, upon this Sab- 
bath day of our institutions, to revert to any subject, to refer to 
any occasion, to deal with any thought that is inconsistent 



Gettysburg Oration. 221 

with the solemnity, the sacredness, and the consecration of 
the hour; but unless the ideas for which the dead who sleep 
around us died were right, unless the ideas of those who op- 
posed them were wrong, then the soldier who died in defense of 
the Republic and the institutions of his country died in vain. 
When a repentant rebel is caged as a cabinet minister and 
made the chief attraction of a peripatetic menagerie; called 
out at every railroad station and compelled to speak his little 
declamation like a naughty pupil by his master, telling the 
multitude that he has been very wicked, but means to do bet- 
ter, and hopes in time to be a good Yankee, the spectacle is 
edifying and instructive. The emotions of the captive may 
be imagined, and the response of the South is significantly 
solid. We must be reconceived. We must love each other. 
We must forget. Let us wash the crimson from our flag, 
because it is the hue of the blood shed by' patriots in defense 
of their country; the blue from its field, because it was the 
color of our soldiers' uniform; and the gold from its stars, 
because they shone on the epaulets of our heroes! 

THE REBEL LEADER. 

I heard one of the chosen leaders of the Confederate armies, 
who was on this very field, say in a speech that his estimate of 
the war was like that contained in the epitaph upon the tomb- 
stone in Kentucky, which was reared by a mourning father 
above his sons who had been slain, one under the National and 
one under the Confederate flag. The inscription read : "They 
both died for what they believed to be their duty, and God 
only knows which was right." 

Mr. President, and comrades of the Grand Army of the 
Republic, to make the sublime ordinances of the Constitution 



222 John James Ingalls. 

of the United States the supreme organic law of a nation of 
freemen, to support and defend it against foreign and domes- 
tic foes, 2,300,000 citizens enlisted and marched to victory; 
250,000 fell by bullets, and by diseases and marches; more 
were disabled for life. Six billions of treasure were spent ; 
unnumbered wives were made widows, and unnumbered inno- 
cent children were made orphans, and homes were made des- 
olate in resisting an effort to destroy the Constitution and 
substitute for the doctrine of allegiance to the Nation the 
revolting heresy of the sovereignty of the States; and yet one- 
half of the rising generation of this Republic is being instructed 
to-day, twenty-five years after the struggle closed, that God 
only knows which was right. 

SLAVERY DESCRIBED. 

Four million human beings were held in slav^ery, mon- 
strous, inconceivable in its conditions of humiliation, dishon- 
or, and degradation, unending and unrequited toil, helpless 
ignorance, actions nameless and unspeakable; families separ- 
ated at the auction-block, and women and children tortured 
with the lash. Seven States seceded, or attempted to secede, 
from the Union to make this system of slavery the comer- 
stone of another social and political fabric, and carnage raged 
on a thousand battlefields from Gettysburg to the Gulf. 

At last, thank God! the slaves are free. All men are polit- 
ically equal. The sun rises in all his course upon no master, 
and sets upon no slave. All men, in name at least, are polit- 
ically equal upon this continent. The shame of the Republic is 
washed out in blood. The Declaration of Independence is no 
longer a falsehood. There are no chains. It is no longer a 
crime to teach to read the Bible. Babes are no longer bfgot- 



Gettysburg Oration. 223 

ten and sold like the young of beasts. Liberty is the law of 
the land. You fought that liberty might be universal; your 
adversaries fought that slavery might be perpetual; and yet 
the rising generation in one half of this Republic is taught 
to-day that God only knows which was right. [Applause and 
laughter.] I have my opinion which was right. [Laughter.] 
If we were not right, if liberty be not better than slavery, if 
nationality be not better than secession, then these solemn cer- 
emonies that we now observe to-day are without significance 
and without consecration. If we were not right, then the war 
for the Union was the greatest crime of all the' centuries. If 
we were not right, then the soldiers of the Republic, instead of 
being associated with the heroes of every history and the mar- 
tyrs of every religion, should take rank with the successful 
pugilists in a slugging match for the champion belt of the 
world. [Cries of "Good ! " and laughter.] If there was no moral 
quality in this contest, if the ideas and objects and principles 
for which we contended were not right, then the Decalogue 
should be repealed, and the distinction between truth and 
falsehood should be obliterated. If we were not right, then 
national morality is a fiction, loyalty is a name, observance of 
oath is a foolish formality, and patriotism is the fatal malady 
of the body politic. This insidious effort to reverse the ver- 
dict of history must be resisted, and it is for that, among other 
purposes, that we are here to-day. 

A PATRIOTIC DUTY. 

This is a day of instruction as well as of religion; it is a 
duty that we owe to the future, that we owe to those who are 
to come after us, that we owe to posterity, that our relations 
to that great conflict should not be misunderstood, and that 



224 John James Ingalls. 

vou should assert your convictions that those of your comrades 
who fell in'^the defense of the Union, the Constitution, and the 
Nation did not die in vain. [Applause.] 

It is not necessary to disparage the bravery or question 
the sinceritv of vour adversaries and antagonists in that strug- 
gle. Let them, if they will, tenderly cherish the deeds of their 
dead and rear monuments to their memory. Lei iheni pLU- 
sion the veteran survivors of their armies, and observe with 
appropriate solemnities the anniversaries of their victories and 
defeats. Let them eulogize the lost cause if they will ; let 
them worship their heroes; let them wear the gray and carry 
the stars and bars, if they prefer it to the Star-spangled Banner 
of the Nation. These arc matters of taste, of sentiment, and 
of propriety, which they must decide for themselves. [Laugh- 
ter] There is no other nation on which the sun shines 
that would permit such violations of patriotism and national 
obligation ; but they are of the same blood and lineage as our- 
selves; they are Americans; they are our brethren, so they 
say. [Great laughter.] But when they assert that Lincoln 
and Davis, that Grant and Lee, that Logan and Jackson are 
equally entitled to the respect and the reverence of mankind, 
and that God only knows which was right, it is blasphemy, it 
is sacrilege, which deserves rebuke and condemnation. [Great 
applause.] 

Fellow-citizens, the Union has not been ungrateful to its 
defenders ; they have been liberally pensioned from the public 
treasury. More than a thousand million dollars have been 
paid to the disabled survivors and the dependent relatives of 
the dead. By some patriotic but unduly parsimonious and 
conservative citizens this has been characterized as wasteful 
and wanton extravagance; but it was a part of the contract 



Gettysburg Oration. 225 

under which the soldiers enlisted. The agreement to pension 
them and their survivors if the>' were slain was as positive 
and specific as the obligation to pay the paltry wages that they 
were to receive. One hundred and fourteen thousand seven 
hundred and forty-two of your comrades now occupy unknown 
graves, anonymous and forgotten heroes, of whom twentv-four 
thousand sleep at Andersonville and Saulsbury, the victims of 
a barbarity which stands isolated and detached, without par- 
allel or precedent in the annals of demoniac and stonv-hearted 
ferocity. It is claimed by those opposed to the enlargement 
of the pension system that liberality has been exerted beyond 
measure, and that the Government has been extravagant in 
its recognition of the value of the services of the veterans of 
the late war. This class of critics is fond of declaring that the 
world's history affords no such example of prodigality in the 
payment of pensions. It might with propriety be added that 
modern lustory at least affords no such example of military 
service. There has been no war in modern times involving 
anything like the number of men engaged, the number of hos- 
tile collisions, the loss in battle, the wasteful expenditure of 
energy, of money, and of life in its prosecution. The Union 
armies in the Rebellion lost in killed and wounded mortally 
-upon the field of battle r 10,000; and death from sickness in 
camp, hospital, and prison swells the number to more than 
400.000. The Germans in the last war with France overran 
and subjugated that country with a loss of less than 150,000 
killed and mortally wounded on the field ; the total loss in all 
the war was less than 200,000. The Union Array lost more 
men in suppressing the Rebellion than the combined armies of 
Europe have lost in all the wars in which they have been 
engaged since the campaign that closed at Waterloo. We 



226 John James Ingalls. 

lost more men than Great Britain has lost on all her fields of 
battle in the last five hundred years. This vast host of 400,000 
men lost and disabled in battle would make an army double 
the size of that of Great Britain to-day. 

We have entered upon the second century of our national 
existence. When this anniversary shall dawn one hundred 
years hence, the grave of the last soldier of the Nation will long 
since have been covered with the fragrant benediction of flow- 
ers; but the ideas for whose supremacy they contended will 
survive, and their memory- will be the object of their country's 
loftiest pride and its tenderest solicitude. Orators will re- 
hearse the stor)- of their intrepid prowess, art will portray upon 
canvas and in marble and bronze the lineaments of the brave 
and the scenes of their daring. The area of the Republic will 
have been extended from the Arctic regions to the warm waters 
of the Caribbean Sea. Great dangers and perils are to be 
encountered, but they will be overcome. Our institutions have 
cost too much to be surrendered or destroyed. They are 
strongly entrenched in, and too zealously supported by, the 
affections of the people. The race problem in the South will 
be solved upon the ultimate basis of exact and complete jus- 
tice. Immigration will be restricted so that the vicious, the 
ignorant, the degraded feculence of foreign nations will not 
be emptied into our civilization. Nihilism and anarchy will 
yield to social order, education, and law. Capital will have 
just compensation, and labor due reward. We shall have 
liberty without license, taxation without oppression, wealth 
without ostentation, opportunities for education commensur- 
ate with the desire to know, and conditions of happiness as 
enlarged as the capacity to enjoy. • 



Gettysburg Oration. 227 

We are about to separate, perhaps to meet no more. Let 
us bear from this consecrated place and from this sacred hour 
the injunctions of that great orator with an allusion to whom 
I began: "That this Nation under God shall have a new 
birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the 
people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth." 
Let us turn to the future with renewed and deeper apprecia- 
tion of the blessings that we enjoy, and of the duties that we 
must perform in order "that this Nation under God shall 
have a new birth of freedom, and government of the peo- 
ple, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from 
the earth." vSublime , and impressive aspiration — fit to be 
engraved above the portals of Liberty's chosen temple, worthy 
to be inscribed in every patriot's heart— "That this Nation 
under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that govern- 
ment of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall 
not perish from the earth." [Loud and prolonged applause.] 



ADDRESS. 



(Delivered at Osawatomie, Kansas, August .^o, 1877, l)y John J. Ingalls 

upon the occasion of the dedication of a monument to tlie 

memory of John Bmwn and his associates.) 

Mr. President: We have assembled to commemorate with 
solemn rites a sacred anniversary upon consecrated ground. 

Reverent hands have summoned from the quarry and 
erected here this votive cencHaph, as a perpetual and enduring 
token and attestation of remembrance and honor for the heroic 
deeds of historic men. Labor has forgotten his task and 
Pleasure her solace, tliai this day may be devoted to patri- 
otic meditation and the recollection of august events. The 
devotees of liberty have repaired hither, as pilgrims to their 
shrine, to dedicate by formal ceremony this monuuient as a 
definite assurance to all the generations of Kansas freemen 
who shall come after them, that upon this day they recalled 
with fervent gratitude the costly sacrifices of freedom's pio- 
neers, and that upon this day they renewed and repeated their 
unalterable allegiance and loyalty to those ideas of truth and 
justice on which the State was buildcd. and for which these 
martyrs lived, and fought, and died. 

Most nations ha\e had pre-historic periods of fable and 
mvstery. Their pregnancy and birth have been obscure. 
Thev have emerged from degraded and barbarous germina- 
tion. The historian must vagueh- or vainly conjecture why 
Rome was buildcd on her seven hills, or Athens^on the Attic 

22S 



Address. 229 

peninsula. The origin even of the great nations of modern 
times is veiled in profoundest obscurity. Their annals recede 
through the twilight of legend and tradition, and are lost in 
darkness and silence. But it is not so in America. The whole 
fabric of our social and political system has been reared in an 
intense blaze of uninterrupted light. I1ie sublime spectacle 
of the building of a nation has been disclosed to mankind. 

In 1606 the territory in America claimed by England was 
divided into two parts by King James the First, called North and 
South Virginia, the former extending from the mouth of the 
Hudson to Newfoundland, and the other from the Potomac to 
Cape Fear. Two companies were immediatel>' formed for the 
colonization of the country, and in 1607 the London company 
dispatched three ships laden with 105 emigrants, who, on the 
13th of May, landed at Jamestown and founded the State of 
Virginia. Captain John Smith, who was the master spirit of 
the expedition and has left a history of the enterprise, says that 
these colonists were "unruly sparks packed off by their friends 
to escape worse destinies at home; poor gentlemen, broken 
tradesmen, footmen, and such as were much fitter to spoil and 
ruin a commonwealth than to help to raise or maintain one." 
They were mostly worthless, profligate, and dissolute adven- 
turers, having no definte objects but to discover gold-mines or 
find a passage to the South Sea. They lived improvidently 
in idleness, squandered their substance in rioting, and fell 
ready victims to the implacable savages by whom they were 
surrounded. The)- were governed by harsh laws, in whose 
enactment they had no voice, and for one hundred years were 
reinforced by convicted felons who were sold as servants to 
the planters, who also secured their wives by purchase, the 

average price being one hundred pounds of tobacco, at that 

♦ 



230 John James Ingalls. 

time worth about seventy-five dollars. In 1671, Sir William 
Berkeley, in his responses to questions submitted to him by 
the plantation committee of the Privy Council, gives a vivid 
picture of the State of Mrginia at that time. He estimates 
the population at 40,000, including 2,000 black slaves and 
6,000 Christian servants, of whom about 1,500 were yearly 
imported, chiefly convicts from the prisons of England. There 
were forty-eight parishes, and the clergy were well paid. 
"But," adds the Governor, "I thank God there are no free 
schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have these hun- 
dred years; for learning has brought disobedience and heresy 
and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, and 
libels against the best government. God keep us from both!" 
The aspirations of this devout and lofty soul have been real- 
ized. God has kept them from both, and the history of that 
portion of America is a living commentary upon the value of a 
svstem which banishes the free school and repudiates the 
printing-press. 

In 1620 the passengers of the Mayflower landed at Ply- 
mouth in North Virginia. 

"A grateful posterity," says Bancroft, "has marked the rock which 
first received their footsteps. The consequences of that day are con- 
stantly unfolding themselves -is time advances. It was the origin of New 
England; it was the planting of the New England institutions. Inquisitive 
historians have loved to mark every vestige of the Pilgrims; poets of the 
purest minds have commemorated their virtues ; the noblest genius has 
been called into exercise to display their merits worthily, and to trace the 
consequences of their daring enterprise. As they landed, their institutions 
were already perfected. Democratic liberty and independent Christian 
worship at once existed in America." 

For more than two centuries the colonies of North and 
South Virginia had unrestricted room for their expansion and 
development, and the results of their antagonistic ideas can be 



Address. 231 

scrutinized and contrasted. We know the moment when the 
Pilgrims perilously disembarked upon the sandy hem of the 
unoccupied continent. Hour by hour for two hundred and 
fifty-seven years we can trace the path of themselves and 
their posterity. Inch by inch we can follow their march 
through the forests, across the mountains and rivers and 
prairies from the Atlantic to the Pacific Sea. We know, for 
they have told us, the ideas, the purposes, the convictions, the 
hopes, the fears, of the founders of this Christian common- 
wealth. We observe the inconceivable energy with which the 
principles of those exiles have been disseminated, and the results 
which have followed their recognition as the foundation of 
a system of government; innumerable cities and habitations; 
deserts and wildernesses reclaimed from savage solitude; har- 
bors and beacons to warn and shelter a vast commerce from 
the hazards of the deep; costly highways, bridges, canals, and 
railroads to facilitate interior intercourse ; tranquil institutions ; 
orderly methods for the administration of justice ; education 
universally diffused ; morality everywhere prevalent, and relig- 
ion assuaging the inevitable griefs of this world with the hope 
of eternal reparation in that which is to come. 

Attracted by the inducements of a civilization which ele- 
vates every citizen into absolute freedom; wliich emancipates 
him from the chains of customs, creeds, and sects ; which stim- 
ulates industry by dignifying labor and generously rewarding 
toil; which opens the prizes of ambition to all; multitudes of 
the discontented and aspiring have thronged hither from other 
lands only to be fused and blended by the predominant force 
of the American idea into the homogeneous mass of the Amer- 
ican people. 



232 Joii-N Jamks Ixgalls. 

Since the Christian era all great political movements have 
had their impulse in religious sentiment. The national exist- 
ence of the jews has been ])reserved for two thousand years 
bv the hope of a Messiah. Tlie destiny of Ivurope. Asia, and 
Africa has been modified l)y the doctrines of Mohammetl. The 
dogmas of Luther and Calvin gave the Commonwealth to 
England and the Puritan to America, and resulted for the first 
time in historv in the adoption of the C.olden Rule as a maxim 
of government, and of the Bible as the chief corner stone of 
the civil state. 

As the Xation grew, two conflicting theories of the nature 
and objects of our political system gradually devehjped into 
increasing activity and contended for the mastery. Prudential 
considerations, the ambition of party leaders, the cowardice of 
emasculated statesmen, the cupidity of pusillanimous traders, 
deferred the crisis by compromises, patches, and plasters till 
the inevitable issue, long deferred, was precipitated upon the 
plains of Kansas, and that mortal duel began whose bloody 
deluge submerged half the continent beneath its crimson 
inundation. 

Among those who signed the covenant in the cabin of the 
Mayflower was Peter Brown, an English carpenter, w^ho died 
in 1633. Descended from him in the sixth generation was 
John Brown, born at Torrington, Connecticut, on the 9th of 
May, 1800. When five years of age, he was taken to Ohio. 
His vouth was obscure and uneventful. He was a shepherd, a 
farmer, a tanner. At the age of eighteen he went to Massa- 
chusetts with the design of obtaining a collegiate education 
and entering the ministry, but w^as attacked with a disorder 
of the eves, which compelled him to abandon this purpose and 
return to Ohio. In early manhood he was a surveyor, and 



Address. 233 

traversed the forests of Pennsylvania and Virginia. Later he 
was engaged in business for ten years in Pennsylvania, and 
afterwards in Ohio, as a tanner, as a cattle dealer, and specu- 
ulator in real estate, till 1846, when he removed with his family 
to Springfield, Massachusetts, and dealt in wool as a commis- 
sion merchant. In 1849 he went to North Elba, New York, 
where he lived upon a sterile rocky farm among the Adiron- 
dacks, and where his body now lies mouldering in the grave. 

In 1854 fo'^ii" sons of John Brown joined the column of emi- 
grants that marched to Kansas. They settled near Pottawato- 
mie Creek, about eight miles from the spot where we now stand, 
and became apostles of the Puritan idea and missionaries of 
freedom. They were unarmed, but believed the State should 
be free. They were harassed, insulted, raided, and plundered 
by gangs of marauders, and at length wrote to their father to 
procure arms to enable them to protect their lives and property, 
and to bring them personally to Kansas. 

The hour had struck. The long humble life of meditation 

was about to flower into immortal deeds. In the autumn of 

1855, during the siege of Lawrence, the old man, with his four 

sons, appeared upon the field equipped for battle. A specta- 
tor says : 

"They drove up in front of the Free State Hotel, standing in a small 
lumber wagon. To each of their persons was strapped a short, heavy 
broadsword. Each was supplied with a goodly number of fire-arms and 
revolvers, and poles were standing endwise around the wagon-box, with 
fixed bayonets pointing upwards. They looked really formidable, and 
were received with great eclat." 

But it soon became apparent that he was too sincere, too 
much in earnest, to be available. He refused to do anything 
but fight. His criticisms upon the political leaders were caus- 
tic and intolerable. He would do nothing because it was expe- 



234 John James Ingalls. 

dient, but everything because it was right. He had no sym- 
pathy with those who wanted to make Kansas a free white 
State. He asserted the manhood of the negro with a vehe- 
mence that agitated the political eunuchs of the period who 
were more anxious for place than for principle. 

On the 4th of July, 1856, it seemed as if the subjugation of 
Kansas bv the slave power was accomplished. The Missouri 
River, the great avenue of access to the Territory, was closed. 
Governor Shannon said, "The roads were literally strewed with 
dead bodies." The Free State citizens of Leavenworth were 
exiles ; the principal towns of the Territory were in the hands 
of the enemy; and on this natal day of the Republic, at the 
command of a servile President, the Legislature was dispersed 
by United States troops, without a protest from that party 
which has recently stunned the public ear with denunciations 
of Federal interference in Louisiana and the insurgent States of 
the South. 

Encamped in the timber that shadowed the banks of the 
Shunganunga, ready to attack the dragoons of Colonel Sum- 
ner upon that fatal day, lay old John Brown and his sons. 
Prudent counsels dissuaded him from violence, and they 
disappeared. 

During the eventful months that succeeded the spirit of lib- 
erty revived. The insolent aggressisons of the invading Mis- 
sourians stimulated the Free State party to unexampled vigor. 
They assumed the offensive and a series of skirmishes ensued, 
in which John Brown and his sons were prominent participants. 
They were present at the engagements at Franklin, at Battle 
Mound, and at Sugar Creek, dispersing the marauders, killing 
some, and capttu-ing many prisoners, together with supplies 
and munitions of war. 



Address. 235 

On the 1 7th of August the Missourians issued another proc- 
lamation calling upon the citizens of Lafayette County to meet 
at Lexington at 12 o'clock on the 20th of that month, with 
arms and provisisons, to march into Kansas. In response to 
this appeal, a force of two thousand men, from the counties of 
Lafayette, Jackson, Johnson, Platte, Saline, Ray, Carroll, and 
Clay, assembled at the village of Santa Fe and invaded the Ter- 
ritory. This force was divided into two columns; one, under 
the command of Senator Atchison, marching to Bull Creek, 
and the other, under General Reid, advancing on Osawatomie. 
Reid's command numbered nearly 500 men. They were well 
supplied with small-arms and had several pieces of artillery. 
John Brown, like Caesar, could not only plan campaigns and 
fight battles, but could write their history. He describes the 
battle of Osawatomie in the following graphic language : 

"Early in the morning of the 30th of August the enemy's scouts 
approached to within one mile and a half of the western boundary of the 
town of Osawatomie. A.t this place my son Frederick K. (who was not 
attached to my force) had lodged with some four other young men from 
Lawrence and a young man named Garrison from Middle Creek. 

"The scouts, led by a Pro-slavery preacher named White, shot my son 
dead in the.road, whilst.he — as I have since ascertained — ^supposed them to 
be friendly. At the same time they butchered Mr. Garrison, and badly man- 
gled one of the young men from Lawrence, who came with my son, leaving 
him for dead. 

' ' This was not far from sunrise. I had stopped during the night about 
two and one-half miles from them, and nearly one mile from Osawatomie. 
I had no organized force, but only some twelve or fifteen new recruits, who 
were ordered to leave their preparations for breakfast and follow me into 
the town as soon as this news was brought to me. 

"As I had no means of learning correctly the force of the enemy, I 
placed twelve of the recruits in a log house, hoping we might be able to 
defend the town. I then gathered some fifteen more men together, whom 
we armed with guns, and we started in the direction of the enemy. After 
going a few rods, we could see them approaching the town in Une of battle, 
about one-half mile off, upon a hill west of the village. I then gave up all 
idea of doing more than to annoy, from the timber near the town into 



236 Joiix James Ixgalls. 

which we were all retreated, anil which was filled with a thick growth of 
underbrush; but had no time to recall the twelve men in the lotj house, 
and St) lost their assistance in the fiiiln. 

"At the point above named 1 met with Cajjlain Cline, a verv active 
young man, who had with him some twelve or fifteen mounted men, and 
persuaded him to go with us into the timber, on the southern shore of the 
Osage, or Marais des Cygnes, a little to the northwest from the village. 
Here the men, numbering no more than thirty in all, were directed to scatter 
and^secrete themselves as well as they could, and await the approach of 
the enemy. This was done in full view of them (who must have seen the 
whole movement), and had to be done in the utmost haste. I believe 
Captain CHne and some of his men were not cv'en dismounted in the tight, 
l)ut cannot assert ])ositively When the left wing of the enemv had 
approached to within common rifle-shot, we commenced firing, and very 
soon threw the northern branch of the enemy's line into disorder. This 
continued some fifteen or twenty minutes, which gave us an uncommon 
opportunity to annoy them. Captain Cline and his men soon got out of 
amnumition, and retired across the river. 

"After the enemy rallied, we kept up our lire, until, by the leaving of 
one and another, we had but six or seven left. We then retired across the 
river. 

"We had one man killed — a Mr. Powers, from Captain Cline's company 
— in the night. Une of my men — a Mr. Partridge — was shot in crossing the 
river. Two or three of the party, who took part in the fight, are yet miss- 
ing, and may be lost or taken prisoners. Two were woimded, viz. : Dr. 
Updegraff and a Mr. Collis. 

"1 cannot speak in too high terms of them, and of many others I have 
not now time to mention. 

"One of my best men, together with myself, was struck with a partially 
spent ball from the enemy, in the commencement of the fight, but we were 
only bruised. The loss I refer to is one of my missing men. The loss of 
the enemy, as we learn by the different statements of our own as well as 
their people, was some thirty-one or two killed, and from forty to fifty 
wounded. After burning the town to ashes, and killing a Mr. Williams 
they had taken, whom neither party claimed, they look a hasty leave, 
carrying their dead and wounded with them. They did not attempt to cross 
the river nor to search for us, and have not since returned to look over 
their work. 

"I give this in great haste, in the midst of constant interruptions. 
My second son was with me in the fight, and escaped unharmed. 
This I mention for the benefit of his friends. 

"Old preacher White, I hear, boasts of having killed my son. Of 
course he is a lion. Johx Brown." 



Address. 237 

The battle of Osawatomie was the most brilliant and im- 
portant episode in the Kansas war. It was the high divide 
of the contest. Its importance cannot be exaggerated. It 
was our Thermopylae, and John Brown was our Leonidas with 
his Spartan band. Thenceforward there was no sneer that the 
Abolitionists dared not fight. It was evident that somebody- 
was in earnest. The numbers engaged were comparatively 
insignificant. No sonorous bulletins announced the result. 
There was little of the pride and pomp and circumstance of 
war. There were no nodding plumes, no haughty banners, no 
stirring blasts from the bugle calling the warriors to arms. 
But when Freedom recounts the sacrifices of her sons, she does 
not ask the number or rank of those who fell. Winkelried is 
as dear to her as Washington, and Osawatomie is as sacred as 
Bannockburn or Bunker Hill. At her behest to-day we reclaim 
from common dust the sacred ashes of the martyrs of Osawat- 
omie. The sunshine of innumerable summers shall smile upon 
this consecrated sward. The hearts of the generations that 
follow us shall swell at the contemplation of their heroic self- 
devotion and guard with jealous care this sacred sepulchre. 

"Nor shall their glory be forgot 

While Fame her record keeps, 
Or Honor points the hallowed spot 

Where Valor proudly sleeps. 
Nor wreck, nor change, nor Winter's blight, 

Nor Time's remorseless doom, 
Can dim one ray of holy light 

That gilds their glorious tomb." 

After the battle of Osawatomie, John Brown spent some 
time in travelling through the Territory, and about the middle 
of September was in Topeka. On his return home he stopped 
at Lawrence for the Sabbath. During the day messengers 



238 John James Ingalls. 

arrived from the south with the intelligence that Reid and 
Atchison with twenty-seven hundred men were approaching 
to destroy the city, which was unprotected by any organized 
force. The regiments which had previously been quartered 
there had been scattered in different localities, leaving not 
more than three hundred men in Lawrence fit for military 
duty. Earlv in the morning the flag on Blue Mound, eight 
miles to the southeast, was displayed at half-mast as a pre- 
concerted signal of great danger in that direction. Soon the 
ascending smoke of the burning dwellings at Franklin confirmed 
the apprehensions of the people. As soon as it was known 
that Captain Brown was in the city, he was unanimously 
chosen commander-in-chief. He immediately commenced his 
preparations for defense; manned the fortifications, and fur- 
nished every man who was destitute of a bayonet with a 
pitchfork as a substitute. Firing began about dusk and soon 
became general. A brass field-piece was brought to the front, 
but before it could be discharged, panic pervaded the ranks of 
pirates and they precipitately fled. 

A very interesting letter from a correspondent who was 
the present on that day says: 

"When late in the afternoon the Pro-slavery forces came marching in 
plain view, Brown made his appearance among the men, went from point 
to point where they were posted and gave them advice, prefacing what he 
said by very modestly remarking that he only spoke as a private person 
having no command, but as one having had some experience'which might 
warrant him in giving some advice on such an occasion. The efTect of his 
advice was magical. It inspired all with courage and complete confidence. 
The spirited show of resistance checked the approach of the enemy and 
saved the town. I always thought the result was wholly attributable to 
the unassuming advice of John Brown." 

Soon after the retreat of the Missourians from Lawrence, 
Tohn Brown went East. He lay ill in Iowa for several weeks, 



^ Address. 239 

but reached Chicago in November, and early in 1857 arrived 
in Boston, where he endeavored to persuade the Legislature of 
Massachusetts to appropriate ten thousand dollars for the pro- 
tection of Northern men in Kansas. He did not return till 
late in the year, having been unable to secure — as he pathet- 
ically said in his farewell "to the Plymouth Rocks, Bunker 
Hill Monuments, Charter Oaks, and Uncle Tom's Cabins" — 
"amid all the wealth, luxury, and extravagance of this heaven- 
exalted people, even the necessary supplies of the common 
soldier." For several months he remained in the Territory, 
organizing his forces for the final crusade against slavery, in 
accordance with plans long entertained, and subsequently 
embodied in the Provisional Constitution framed at Chatham, 
Canada West, in May, 1858. The news of the brutal massacre 
of the Marais des Cygnes recalled him again to Kansas. Expect- 
ing a renewal of strife, he built fortifications on the Little 
Osage and Little vSugar Creeks, and prepared for war. Having 
remained so long on the defensive, he determined to invade 
Missouri, and thus stop the forays upon which the supporters 
of slavery had so long depended for help. In January, 1859, 
he wrote a letter regarding his operations in Missouri, which 
has become celebrated as "John Brown's Parallels." He says: 

"Trading Post, Kans., January, 1859. 

"Gentlemen: You will greatly oblige a humble friend by allowing the 
use of your columns while I briefly state two parallels in my poor way. 

"Not one year ago, eleven quiet citizens of this neighborhood, viz.: 
William Robinson, William Colpetzer, Amos Hall, Austin Hall, John 
Campbell, Asa Snyder, Thomas Stilwell, William Hairgrove, Asa Hair- 
grove, Patrick Ross and B L. Reed, were gathered up from their work and 
their homes by an armed force under one Hamilton, and without trial or 
opportunity to speak in their own defense, were formed into line and all 
but one shot — five killed and five wounded. One fell unharmed, pretend- 
ing to be dead. All were left for dead. The only crime charged against 
them was that of being Free State men. Now, I inquire, what acti<jn has 



240 joHx [ames Ixgalls. 

ever, since the occurrence in May last, been taken by either the President 
of the United States, the Governor of Missouri, the Governor of Kansas, 
or any of their tools, or by any Pro-slavery or Administration man, to fer- 
ret out and punish the perpetrators of this crime? 

'Xow for the other parallel: On Sunday, December 19, a negro man 
called Jim came over to the Osage settlement from Missouri, and stated 
that he, together with his wife, two children, and another negro man, was 
to be sold within a day or two, and begged for help to get away. On Mon- 
day (the following) night two small companies were made up to go to Mis- 
souri and forcibly liberate the five slaves, together with other slaves. One 
of these companies I assumed to direct. We proceeded to the place, sur- 
rounded tlie buildings, liberated the slaves, and also took certain property 
supposed to belong to the estate. 

"W'e, however, learned l)efore leaving that a portion of the articles we 
had taken belonged to a man living on the plantation as a tenant, and who 
was supposed to have no interest in the estate. We promptly returned 
to liim all we had taken. We then went to another plantation, where we 
found five more slaves, took some property and two white men. We 
moved all slowly away into the Territory for some distance, and then sent 
the wliite men back, telling them to follow us as soon as they chose to do so. 
The otlier company freed one female slave, took some property, and, as I 
am informed, killed one white man, the master, who fought against the 
liberation. 

" Now for a comparison : Pvleven persons are forcibly restored to their 
natural and inalienable rights, with but one man killed, and 'all liell is 
stirred from beneath.' It is currently reported that the Governor of Mis- 
souri has made a requisition upon the Govenor of Kansas for the delivery 
of all such as were concerned in the last named 'dreadful outrage.' The 
Marshal of Kansas is said to be collecting a f>osse of Missouri (not Kansas) 
men at West Point in Missouri, a little town about ten miles distant, 'to 
enforce the laws.' All Pro-slavery, Conservative, Free State, and Dough- 
face men and Administration tools are filled with holy horror. 

"Consider the two cases and the action of the Administration party. 
" Respectfully yours, John Brown." 

The result of tliis raid was inarv^elous. Bates and Vernon 
cotxnties were denuded instantaneously of their slaves. Some 
were sold vSotith, some fled into the Territory, and others were 
removed into the interior of the State. The Governor of Mis- 
souri offered S3,ooc» reward for the arrest of John Brown, which 
the President supplemented by an additional inducement of 



Address. 241 

$250, to which Brown retorted by ofifering $2.50 for the deliv- 
ery of James Buchanan to him in camp. He moved slowly 
northward with his four families of liberated slaves along the- 
now abandoned line of the "Underground Railroad," reaching 
Holton in Jackson County late in January, pursued at a safe 
distance bv a valorous squad of thirty heroes from Lecompton. 
Not feeling competent to cope with John Brown and his seven 
companions, they sent to Atchison for reinforcements, which 
soon arrived to the number of twelve, making a force of forty- 
two men opposed to eight. They made valiant preparations 
to attack the little garrison, but when the old man emerged 
from his log-cabin fortress and offered fight, they incontinently 
broke for the prairie, some who were dismounted seizing upon 
the tails of the horses to assist them in their headlong flight. 
Four generals of the Atchison brigade were captured, together 
with several horses. The captain detained his prisoners five 
davs in captivity. Those who came to scoff remained to pray. 
He read the Bible to them, and compelled them to pray 
night and morning, ordering them to their knees with a cocked, 
pistol in his hand. When he was ready to resume his march,, 
he released them with his benediction, retaining their horses, 
and overcoats for his negroes. They walked forty miles across 
the snowy prairie to Atchison, and the gallant episode was 
always known as the "Battle of the Spurs." I have talked 
with several of the survivors, and they all speak of John Brown: 
in the highest terms of respect, as a brave and honest but mis- 
guided man. He reached Canada in March following, colo- 
nized his emigrants near Windsor, and returned to Kansas no- 
more. 

His subsequent career belongs to the history of the Nation.. 
Out of the portentous and menacing cloud of anti-slavery sen.- 



242 John James Ingalls. 

timent that had long brooded with sullen discontent, a baleful 
meteor above the North, he sprang like a terrific thunderbolt, 
whose lurid glare illuminated the continent with its devas- 
tating flame, and whose reverberations among the splintered 
crags of Harper's Ferry were repeated on a thousand battle- 
fields from Gettysburg to the Gulf. 

He died as he had lived, a Puritan of the Puritans. There 
was no perturbation in his serene and steadfast soul. I know 
of no productions in literature more remarkable than his letters 
written in prison while he was under sentence of death. 

The closing words of Socrates to his friends, before he 
drank the fatal hemlock, were these: 

" It is now time that we depart. I to die, you to live; but which has 
the better destiny is unknown to all excepUthe gods." 

The noblest pagan of antiquity had courage, but not faith. 
John Brown said: 

"I can trust God with both the time and manner of my death, believ- 
ing, as I now do, that for me at this time to seal my testimony for God 
and humanity with my blood will do vastly more toward advancing the 
cause I have earnestly endeavored to promote than all I have done in my 
life before." 

" I cannot feel that God will suffer even the poorest service we may 
any of us render Him or His cause to be lost or in vain." 

"As I believe most firmly that God reigns, I cannot believe that any- 
thing I have done, sulTered, or may yet suffer will be lost to the cause of 
God or humanity, and before I began my work at Harper's Ferry I felt 
assured that in the worst event it would certainly pay." 

"Tell your father that I am quite cheerful; that I do not feel myself 
in the least degraded by my imprisonment, my chains, or the near pros- 
pect of the gallows. Men cannot imprison, chain, nor hang the soul!" 

'I am endeavoring to get ready for another field of action, where no 
defeat befalls the truly brave. " 

" It is a great comfort to feel assured that I am permitted to die for a 
cause, and not merely to pay the debt of Nature, which all must. I feel 
myself to be unworthy of so great distinction." 

"John Brown writes to his children to abhor with undying hatred also 
that sum of all villainy — slavery." 



Address. 243 

"I feel just as content to die for God's eternal truth and for suffering 
humanity on the scaffold as in any other way." 

"I think I cannot now better serve the cause I love so much than to 
die for it, and in my death, I may do more than in my Ufe." 

"I do not believe I shall deny my Lord and Master Jesus Christ, and 
I^should if I denied my principles against slavery." 

What immortal and dauntless courage breathes in this pro- 
cession of stately sentences; what fortitude; what patience; 
what faith ; what radiant and eternal hope ! Over his soul hov- 
ered the covenant of peace. He felt the lofty consciousness of 
"Deeds that are royal in a land beyond kings' sceptres." 

He trod the scaffold with the step of a conqueror, and the 
man whom Virginia executed as a felon Kansas to-day canon- 
izes as a martyr. 

Nothing is more difficult to analyze and detect than the 
secret of any man's power and influence upon his associates, 
his generation, and the ultimate destinies of mankind. Who 
can tell why the obscure Lincoln became the great leader of 
Northern sentiment instead of Seward or Chase, who had long 
been the prominent advocates of Republican ideas? Or why 
Grant led the loyal millions to victory instead of his predeces- 
sors, whose attainments and experience seemed equally quali- 
fied to insure success? We cannot find the meat on which our 
Caesars feed. The men who succeed greatly are not those of 
whom success could be predicted. After we have weighed and 
measured a man, learned all his habits, his attainments, his 
capacities for speech, pleasure, business, accumulation, there 
is something in him that eludes our strictest scrutiny; that 
indefinable attribute which makes him what he is and dis- 
tinguishes him from all his kind. It is sometimes said that 
circumstances make men, but the reverse is true: men make 
their circumstances. Opportunity occurs to all, but only one 



244 John James Ingalls. 

seizes it. Some sav that luck or chance favored the man who 
wins, but in the domain of law there are no accidents. Every- 
man ultimately goes to his own place. 

In attempting to estimate and comprehend the influence 
which John Brown exerted upon this age, we are perplexed by 
much that is anomalous and inexplicable. Many of his con- 
temporaries, even those who sympathized with him in opinion, 
regarded him as a fanatic and madman — crazed by the death 
of his sons, and inspired by the fur\- of revenge. Emerson 
says the dreams of yesterday are to-day the deliberate conclu- 
sions of public opinion, and to-morrow the charter of nations. 
The Abolitionists of twenty years ago invented many schemes 
of emancipation. Some wanted to deport and colonize the 
negroes in Africa or the West India Islands; others thought 
the Nation should buy them of their owners and gradually ele- 
vate them to citizenship; but John Brown's plan, as developed 
in the Chatham Constitution, was to free them in the South 
and keep them there. The impracticable visionary schemer 
was wiser than the statesmen who derided him. The dream 
of 1858 was the accomplished fact of 1863. The theories of 
the enthusiast have been imbedded in the organic law of the 
Nation. He builded better than he knew. 

The defects and infirmities of his nature rendered him more 
powerful in council and more formidable in action, because his 
few and narrow con-, ictions irresistibly impelled hitn without 
interruption in the inevitable direction of their accomplish- 
ment. There was no diffusion in his career. He was not dis- 
tracted by ambition, the love of wealth, the desire for ease 
and luxury, the attractions of books or art. He was cast in the 
rigid mold of the Pilgrims, from whom he descended. His soul 
was not decorated nor embellished, but was as severe as the 



Address. 245 

gaunt, grim, gray tenement which it inhabited. He was not 
hampered by personal necessities. His wants were few; his 
habits frugal and unostentatious, so that he moved without 
impediments. 

In any age or country, or under any system where abuses 
existed that needed correction, he would have been a reformer 
in politics and a Puritan in religion. He would have gone 
with John Huss to the stake or with Sir Thomas More to the 
scaffold. 

The convictions upon which he acted were not hasty, sud- 
den, and transient, but deliberate and inflexible. He never 
hesitated. Delay did not baffle nor disconcert him, nor dis- 
comfiture render him despondent. His tenacity of purpose 
was inexorable, and seemed like an exterior power, rather than 
an impulse from within. As early as 1839, twenty years before 
his martyrdom, he formed the purpose which he never relin- 
quished. Thenceforward every hour was devoted to meas- 
ures for the destruction of slavery, either by action, by conversa- 
tion, or by reflection. Those relations and possessions and 
pursuits which to most men are the chief objects of existence, 
home, friends, fortune, estate, power, to him were the most 
insignificant incidents. He regarded them as trivial, unim- 
portant, and wholly subsidiary to the accomplishment of the 
great mission for which he had been sent upon this globe. 
Kis love of justice was an irresistible passion, and slavery the 
accident that summoned all his powers into dauntless and 
strenuous activity. 

He believed there was no acquisition so splendid as moral 
purity; no possession nor inheritance so desirable as personal 
liberty ; nothing on this earth nor in the world to come so valu- 
able as the soul, whatever be the hue of its bodily habitation; 



246 John James Ingalls. 

no impulse so lofty and heroic as an unconquerable purpose to 
love truth, and an invincible determination to obey God. 

It is a prodigious task, Mr. President, to lift a man, a com- 
munity, a race out of barbarism into civilization. Nor is the 
labor less difficult to keep them on the plane to which they 
have been elevated. The disposition is to relapse. The ten- 
dency is downward. Stop the machinery of courts, schools, 
and churches for a single generation, and society would crumble 
into ruin. It requires an active coalition of all the conserv- 
ative elements in every age to prevent destructive organic 
changes; to preserve life, libeity, and property against the 
assaults of the indolent and vicious. If this is true of the material 
interests of mankind, where so many selfish inducements con- 
spire to stimulate to the highest efforts, how much more ardu- 
ous the endeavor to elevate a nation to a higher moral grade 
at the sacrifice of many acquisitions that are deemed desirable ! 

And yet no one can doubt that the general progress of the 
human race, morally, intellectually, and physically, has been 
upward. Through the long desolate track of history, through 
all the seemingly aimless struggles and random gropings, amid 
the turbulent chaos of wrong, injustice, crime, agony, disease, 
want, and wretchedness, the trepidation of the oppressed, the 
bloody exultations and triumphs of tyrants, the tendency has 
been toward the light. Out of every conflict some man, or 
sect, or nation has emerged with more privileges, enlarged 
opportunities, broader liberty, greater capacity for happiness. 

I believe it is Carlyle who says that when any great change 
in human society or institutions is to be wrought, God raises up 
men to whom that change is made to appear as the one thing 
needful and absolutely indispensable. Scholars, orators, poets, 
philanthropists, play their parts; but the crisis comes through 



Address. 247 

some one whom the world regards as a fanatic or impostor, and 
whom the supporters of the system he assails crucify between 
thieves or gibbet as a felon. 

It required generations to arouse the conscience of the 
American people to the enormous iniquity of African slavery. 
They admitted it was wrong; but they were politicians, and 
wanted office; they were merchants, and wanted tranquillity; 
they were manufacturers, and wanted cotton ; they were labor- 
ers, and wanted bread ; they were capitalists, and wanted peace. 
Had the abolition of slavery depended alone upon the efforts 
of Sumner, Chase, Seward, Phillips, and their associates, we 
should still be engaged in a windy war of wordv debate. It 
does not require much courage to talk against a wrong, nor does 
it hurt the wrong much to be talked against. Rhetoric is 
cheap. Mere abstract truth harms nobody. It is easy to be 
radical in a great office upon a liberal salary, and with a com- 
fortable majority upon which to recline. The classical ora- 
tors, the scholarly declaimers and essayists, performed their 
work. They furnished the formulas for popular use and ex- 
pression; but old John Brown, with his pikes, did more in one 
brief hour to render slavery impossible than all the speech- 
makers and soothsayers had done in a quarter of a century, 
and he will be remembered when they and their works are lost 
in dusty oblivion. The man who is not afraid to die for an 
idea is its most convincing advocate. 

Already those who were considered as the great intellectual 
leaders of opinion in this crusade are dead. I was presiding 
over the Senate when Sumner left the chambfer for the last time 
in life, and I saw his remains borne from the Capitol, which had 
been the scene of his labors for nearly a quarter of a century. 
I was with Vice-President Wilson the day before he died, and 



548 Joii.x James Ingali.s. 

witnessed the unparalleled display that attended the funeral 
cortege as it moved through New York City on its way to his 
last resting-place in Massachusetts. I witnessed the adminis- 
tration of the second oath of office to President Grant by Chief 
Justice Chase, then a broken and disconsolate old man just 
lingering on the verge of dissolution. They are almost forgot- 
ten. Their names are no longer on the tongues of nieii. Their 
speeches have died out of popular remembrance. vSeward yet 
lives bv a fortunate phrase, "the irrepressible conllict," which 
was not his own except as an adopted foundling. 

The student of the future will exhume their orations and 
arguments and state papers as a part of the subterranean his- 
tory of the epoch. The antiquarian will dig up their remains 
from the alluvial drift of the period and construe their relations 
to the great events in which they were actors; but the three 
men who will loom forever against the horizon of time as the 
Tepresentative, conspicuous types of this era, like pyramids 
above the desert, or mountain peaks over the subordinate 
plains, are Abraham Lincoln, U. S. Grant, and old John Brown 
of Osawatomie, and I am not sure that the last will not be first. 
He has a prodigious grip upon the public imagination. His 
example is bedded deep in the general conscience. There are 
more men in America to-day who can sing the John Brown 
rsong than anv other hyum, unless it may be the long-meter 
"Old Hundred" Doxology. It is an immortal strain, and stirs 
the soul like the solemn diapason of an organ in the fretted 
•vaults of a cathedral. 

In the early days of the war I spent an autumn night in the 
camp of one of the most famous Kansas regiments. The tents 
were pitched upon the eastern slope of a grassy declivity that 
descended to the wooded margin of a slender stream, whose 



Address. 



249 



meanderings were marked by an exhalation of blue haze that 
extended from horizon to horizon. The pensive splendor of 
a full moon illuminated the alien landscape with its melancholy 
glory as we sat around the glimmering embers and talked of the 
great problems of the tremendous conflict upon which we had 
entered. The murmurs of the camp had become almost inar- 
ticulate as night deepened, when suddenly a single distant 
voice broke upon the stillness with the inspiring words of that 
sublime martial psalm, "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering 
in the grave!" A hundred voices spontaneously swelled the 
repetition of the refrain, and when the chorus was reached, it 
ascended in a vast volume of reverential exultation to heaven, 
solemn as death, grand with its majestic suggestions of immor- 
tality. It was a revelation and a prophecy, and I felt that a 
people which could adopt such an anthem as this for their war- 
song must march to victory. 

During the past few 3'ears it has been my fortune to oft- 
en travel through Maryland and Virginia, and I have never 
approached Harper's Ferry by day or night when old John 
Brown did not become the universal topic of conversation, and 
the bridge, the engine-house, and the ruined arsenal the objects 
of the most eager interest and scrutiny. Everyone feels that 
it is historic ground, and that here was struck the first deadly, 
earnest blow at African slavery. From the moment that shot 
was fired, talk, discussion, debate, were at an end. He who 
was not for slavery was against it. Gristle was replaced by 
bone. The North became vertebrated. The age of compro- 
mise and cartilage was over. Sentiments and emotions crys- 
tallized suddenly into stern convictions. Fear and rage fell 
upon the South, and from the Potomac to the Gulf 



250 John James Ingalls. 

"The universal host up sent 
A shout that tore Hell's concave, and beyond 
Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night." 

Seven years ago the mission of John Brown seemed to have 
been fullly accompHshed. The Declaration of Independence 
was no longer a lie. Slaver\' was destroyed, and its further 
existence inhibited by constitutional enactment. The freed- 
men by their sobriety, their obedience to law, their decorous 
demeanor, justified the temerity those who had dared to main- 
tain that they possessed intelligence superior to beasts, and 
souls that were immortal. During centuries of brutal and 
degrading bondage, they had retained the typical character- 
istics of their race. Their virtues were their own; their vices 
were the offspring of the cruel system of which thev had been 
the reluctant victims. Music and mirth enlivened the inter- 
vals of their unrequited toil. Loyalty and fidelity seemed the 
instincts of their nature. Patient of labor and obedient to law, 
they witnessed the prodigious accumulations derived from 
their unpaid industry without an effort to reclaim their own. 
Their local and personal attachments were intense. During 
the long moral combat that was the vestibule of the war they 
resisted the solicitations of those who believed that he who 
would be free himself must strike the blow, and continued 
faithful to the tyrants who had enslaved them. During the 
awful conflict that followed, when their emancipation became 
the integer, while their owners were doing desperate battle to 
rivet more firmly the fetters that bound them, they peacefully 
tilled the fields and served the families of their masters, wait- 
ing patiently for the hour of their deliverance to draw nigh. 
If they pillaged or plundered the estates that were in their 
charge, or insulted or wronged the helpless women and children 



Address. ' 251 

who were at their mercy, history has failed to record the deed. 
And when at last they emerged from the smoke and din and 
uproar upon the high plane of American citizenship, beneath 
the vindicated flag that is henceforth to be the symbol of the 
honor and the emblem of the glory of their country, they 
accepted the trusts and responsibilities with a tranquil and 
orderly dignity that has defeated the predictions and challenged 
the wonder of mankind. 

They began to acquire homes and property. They filled 
savings banks with their earnings. They assumed definite 
domestic relations. They gathered about the schoolmaster 
and eagerly studied the alphabet, the primer, the Bible. Their 
instincts were more infallible than reason. They voted with 
their friends. The sudden and violent transition was accom- 
panied by no social disturbance such as might reasonably have 
been anticipated. It was a terrible test of the elasticity of our 
political system. No such strain ever fell upon a nation before. 
Had the freedmen been disorderly and defiant, our institutions 
could not have survived the shock inflicted by the introduction 
of this tremendous element of uneducated suffrage. 

The autonomy of the States had been restored. The pesti- 
lent heresy of State sovereignty had been recanted, and in its 
place appeared the true gospel of American nationality. The 
United States were at last a nation, and not a mere aggrega- 
gation of detached and incoherent communities. The Nation 
existed, not at the pleasure of a State, nor of a majority of the 
States, nor of all the States, but by virtue of the will of a 
majority of all the people. 

Citizenship was made a national attribute. Behind every 
citizen, white or black, at home or abroad, stood the Nation, a 
beneficent, potential energy, pledged to protect him in the full, 



252 John James Ingali^s. 

free, and quiet enjoyment and exercise of all the rights of citi- 
zenship. Xo man could be so humble, so obscure, so remote 
as to become an alien from its blessings. If his rights under 
the Constitution were infringed or abridged, and redress was 
refused by the local authorities, he could confidently apply to 
the Nation for restitution. 

TIk' war was really a great conyention to amend the Consti- 
tution, and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amend- 
ments were the result. The three ideas that they embody are 
universal freedom, national citizenship, and the indissoluble 
union of the States. 

Bui all great moral moyements haye their oscillations. 
They reach a culminating point as a pendulum moyes to the 
end of its arc, and then with constantly increasing velocity 
and momentum they sweep down the curve on the inevitable 
return from their remotest excursion. For the past seven 
years the path of the Nation has been downward. If either of 
the Amendments were submitted to the States to-day, I do 
not believe that one of them could receive the number of 
votes neccessary for ratification. I doubt whether a State south 
of the Ohio Riv^er would vote for an Amendment declaring 
that the union of the States was perpetual and indissoluble. 
I have heard the declaration upon the floor of both houses of 
Congress, that the ratification of the three Amendments was 
procured by fraud and violence, and that they were not oblig- 
atory upon any State that chose to disregard them. It has 
become unpopular to speak of disloyalty and treason. The 
scars and uniform of the Union soldier are badges of dishonor 
and passports to contumely in many of the States. To 
rehearse their deeds and revere their valor is denounced as 
unprofitable sectionalism. Our exercises to-day will be char- 



Address. 253 

acterized as preaching the gospel of hate, fanning the embers 
of strife, and reviving the dead issues of the past. Public 
opinion has grown flabby. Forgetfulness is the supreme sug- 
gestion of statesmanship. Pacification is the watchword of 
the hour. A burglar can be pacified by delivering to him the 
contents of the bank vault and assuring him of immunity. A 
murderer can be pacified by entering a nolle and discharging 
him from prison. All criminals can be pacified by relinquish- 
ing to them the fruits of their crime. Hell would be quiet if 
the devil could secure the abrogation of the Moral Code and 
the absolute repeal of the Decalogue. 

A school of political pigmies, whom Providence for some 
inscrutable purpose has placed in power, are endeavoring to 
pacify the country by debauching its convictions; by assert- 
ing that those who sought to overthrow and destroy the Gov- 
ernment are more entitled to its favors than those who sacri- 
ficed all to uphold it ; by attempting to obliterate the distinc- 
tion between right and wrong and to repeal the laws of God. 
They are seeking to put the new wine of 1877 into the old bot- 
tles of i860, with the probability of the ultimate loss of both 
receptacles and contents. 

Reinforced by these perfidious allies under the delusive 
banners of peace, harmony, and reconciliation, the vanquished 
enemies of the Nation have been steadily and relentlessly pur- 
suing their purposes to regain what they lost. They have fal- 
sified every pledge by which they secured their political resto- 
ration. They promised that education should be universal, 
but they refuse appropriations for the support of schools, burn 
school-houses, expel the teachers, and discharge the profes- 
sors in their universities who believed in the preservation of 
the Union. They promised that suffrage should be protected, 



254 John James Ingalls. 

freedom of speech and opinion maintained; equal rights en- 
forced, and justice impartially administered. How these sol- 
emn covenants have been preserved, we know too well. Un- 
der the sheltering pretext of the sovereignty of the States, 
atrocious despotisms have been erected on the ruins of liberty. 
Popular majorities have been suppressed by the most revolt- 
ing methods known to tyrants. But one political opinion is 
tolerated, and when the organization that entertains opposing 
views has been disbanded by carnage and terror, it is announced 
that, the causes which justified fraud and violence no longer 
existing, honest elections ijiust be restored. Murder has be- 
come one of the political fine arts, and assassination a logical 
argument. Governors and sheriffs who conspire with mobs 
of felons and protect them from punishment are rewarded by 
renominations and recognized as leaders of the people; and 
while slavery is not restored by name, the freedmen are being 
rapidly reduced by indirect devices to a condition of servile 
dependence that has all the horrors of slavery with none of its 
alleviations. "Home rule" means the right to murder with 
impunity, and "local self-government" the right of a white 
minority to suppress a black majority by systematic violence 
and wholesale assassination. And when the beneficent inter- 
vention of the Nation is invoked in behalf of those whom it is 
bound by the most sacred obligations to protect, the appeal is 
denounced as an invasion of the rights of the States, because 
the wrongs are not affirmatively sanctioned and authorized by 
the constitutions and statutes of those States where it is admit- 
ted that they exist. The acts are excused upon the ground 
that they are committed by young, misguided, and passionate 
citizens, inflamed beyond endurance by the wrongs of which 
they have been the victims. Speechless submission to these 



Address. 



255 



flagrant violations of the social compact is called pacification 
and harmony. Tacitus has fitly described this condition in a 
single sentence: "Solitudinem faciunt et pacem appellant" — 
"They make a desert and call it peace." 

In a brief interval the forces which so nearly destroyed the 
Nation will resume its absolute control. They now have the 
House of Representatives, and in two years they will have the 
Senate by decisive majorities. Already the chieftains who led 
their legions with thundering menace aganist the Capitol sit 
beneath the shadow of its dome, and claim to be the sole guard- 
ians of constitutional liberty and the consistent advocates of 
the rights of the people. With every vestige of opposition 
crushed and trampled out of existence in half of the States of 
the Union, their ultimate success in securing the Executive 
seems hardly to admit of doubt. Few vestiges of our great 
conflict have been left, except its scars and its burdens, and if 
the Amendments are to be made inoperative, our Civil War will 
be justly stigmatized as the greatest crime of history. 

For the lamentable condition of affairs in the South the 
inexplicable blunders of reconstruction are largely responsible. 
They turned society upside down. They arrayed the intelli- 
gence, the wealth, the land, the political skill, the traditions of 
the South against its numbers, its ignorance, and its degrada- 
tion, and put the latter on top. The struggle for supremacy 
was mevitable, and could have but one issue. By means 
wholly obnoxious and detestable, brains won. By fair means 
or foul, they generally do. The lessons of history in this 
connection are monotonous, but the statesmen of 1868 had 
not read history, which is said to be philosophy teaching by 
example. 



256 John James Ingalls. 

Their plan left but two courses open for those to whom they 
bequeathed the priceless legacy of their labors. The first was 
to prop up and sustain the unstable fabric which their wisdom 
had erected, by the continuous application of the national 
power. The other was to withdraw the Army and leave the 
whole subject to the local authorities, however inert, reluctant, 
or hostile they might be. In cither event a contest was una- 
voidable. Under the first plan, the strife would be one of arms 
and force. Under the other, it would be a conllict of ideas, 
with the press, the school-book, and the pen as the weapons of 
the war. 

The alternative has been chosen, and the selection is irre- 
vocable. There can be no footsteps backward. It is idle to 
quarrel with the inevitable. Wliat has been done we cannot 
undo. Statesmanship has no concern with the past except to 
learn its lessons. Recrimination and hostile criticism are 
worse than useless. We must act in the present and go for- 
ward to meet the future. However much some may regret 
what thev conceive to be a surrender of principles, an aban- 
donment of friends, a falsification of history, and a confession 
that a great ofhce is held by successful fraud, the path of wis- 
dom is plain. We must wait the result of the experiment. 
We must insist upon a rigid observ^ance of the guaranties of 
freedom contained in the Constitution, and if they are violated, 
we must invoke that revolt of the national" conscience which 
sooner or later is sure to come. 

If there are those who' believe that the issues whose discussion 
upon peaceful or bloody fields formed the annals of our first cen, 
tury are^dead, I am not one of them. Our political history has 
always moved in periods defined by the conflict between State 
and national authority. The views entertained by the rival par- 



Address. 257 

ties that arose when the Constitution was framed, and that in 
fact existed under the old confederation, are the same views 
that have continued to exist, and which shall survive so long 
as our Government shall endure. Notwithstanding its sup- 
posed precision and its subjection to judicial interpretation- 
our Constitution has always been found to possess sufficient 
latent powers to make it progressive and adapt it to the needs 
and convictions of the Nation. But there is something more 
venerable than constitutions, more sacred than charters, and 
that is the rights for whose protection they are ordained ; and 
when the provisions of our organic law ceased to express the 
purposes of the people, it was from time to time amended, and 
when its capacity for amendments by peaceful methods was 
exhausted, it was amended by the sword. 

But no man is ever convinced by being overpowered. 
Force cannot extirpate ideas. They are immortal. Their 
vitality is inextinguishable. They cannot be annihilated. 
They may be for a time repressed, but they never die. War 
does not change the opinions of the victors nor the vanquished. 
It proves nothing, except which combatant has the deepest 
purse and the toughest muscle. Had the result of our conflict 
been reversed ; had the Army of the Confederacy dictated the 
terms of peace from the Capitol ; had the constitutional theory 
of Calhoun been forced upon the Nation; had slavery been 
made national, and the Georgia statesman fulfilled his threat 
to call the roll of his slaves in the shadow of Bunker Hill — I 
should never have believed that secession and slaverv were 
right, nor that the patriot dead had died in vain ; nor should I 
have ever ceased to aspire that all men might be free, and that 
a future day might dawn upon a redeemed and regenerated 
Republic. Many orators have declared, many papers have 



258 John James Ingalls. 

stated, many conventions have resolved, that the ideas for 
which the South contended were settled by the war ; but I have 
never heard the confession that they were wrong or without 
warrant in the Constitution. I should distrust the sincerity 
and suspect the ingenuousness of any intelligent Confederate 
who would say this. 

It was not to be expected that the tremendous passions 
engendered by the Civil War, the trepidation of its fugitives, 
the thwarted ambitions of its leaders, and all the direful sequels 
of the most portentous tragedy of time, should instantaneously 
be quieted and disappear. History teaches no such lesson. 
The fluctuations of the storm-smitten sea do not subside till 
long after the violence of the tempest is spent. But it was not 
unreasonable to hope for a manly and vigorous effort to assauge 
the melancholy passions of the terrible epoch ; to calm the exas- 
peration of the thoughtless ; to educate the masses of the people 
to obedience, order, and peace. 

But as the revolted States have resumed their relations to 
the Government, the old leaders of opinion, the chiefs of the 
defeated armies, have been sent to both houses of Congress, and 
the sole test of political advancement is service in the Confed- 
erate Army. No Unionist, no conservative, no negro, ever has 
received or ever will receive the support of that party which 
has at last secured "a solid South." To revert once more to 
the supposition that the contest had resulted differently and 
that the North had been "reconstructed," what would have 
been the irresistible conclusion had men like Garrison, Phillips, 
Sumner, Sheridan, and Sherman been sent to the Senate and 
House, and elected governors and officers of State? The 
deduction would have been reasonable at least, that memory 
survived, though hope might be dead. 



Address. 259 

Therefore, Mr. President, it is not singular that we are 
incredulous; that we demand something more than varnished 
and veneered professions; that we distrust handshakings and 
embraces, and languishing sentimentalism, and feel inclined 
to say: "Methinks the lady doth protest too much!" We 
are prompted to penetrate beneath the surface and inspect the 
social methods, the political agencies, the tendencies which 
mark the direction of the thought of the people and define the 
orbit of the popular will. 

No, Mr. President, let us not deceive ourselves nor be de- 
ceived. There can be no truce between right and wrong. In 
the conflict of ideas there can be no armistice. The gigantic 
revolution through which we have passed did not arise upon a 
point of etiquette, and it cannot be ended by a polite apology. 
It was a great struggle between two hostile and enduring forces, 
which must continue until one or the other shall become dis- 
placed and expelled from our system of Government. It must 
go on either till the right of one man, or class, by violence or 
force, to prescribe the opinions, control the acts, and define the 
political relations of others is freely conceded, or until the right 
of every individual, however humble, to think, act, or vote in 
accordance with the suggestions of his own judgment and con- 
science under the law shall be absolutely unquestioned. So 
long as this right is denied or abridged under any pretext, or in 
any locality. North, South, East, or West, in the shadow of the 
mountains, in the great valley, or by the shore of gulf or sea, 
so long the conflict must last. It will never end till the unity 
and supremacy of the Nation is undisputed; till life is sacred 
and liberty secure ; till the opportunities for knowledge are as 
universally diffused as the desire to know, and the pursuit of 
happiness as unlimited as the capacity to enjoy. 



26o John James Ixgalls. 

In view of these considerations, our exercises tt)-day have a 
profound significance. Her Territorial pupilage educated Kan- 
sas to freedom, and she has not forgotten that bloody tuition. 
Twenty-one years have elapsed since Garrison and his associ- 
ates died that the State might be free. I see before me many 
who participated with them in those early contests, and who 
still stand as sleepless sentinels upon the watch-towers of lib- 
erty. The siren and seductnc song of peace will not delude 
their vigilance nor lull them into security. The passions en- 
gendered in that epoch have subsided, but its lessons remain, 
and this monument which we dedicate is not alone a memento 
of the past, but it is an admonition for the present and the 
future. It announces that against all the blandishments of 
policy, the temptations of place, or profit, or expediency, we 
dedicate ourse^lves to as.sert and defend those vital principles 
of justice and rectitude which are the foundation not alone of 
all individual welfare, but of true national grandeur. 

There is one further act of commemoration to complete the 
full recognition of the debt of gratitude we owe John Brown. 
The old hall of the House of Representatives in the Capitol at 
Washington, which is consecrated by the genius, the wisdom, 
and the patriotism of the statesmen of the first century of 
American history, has been designated by Congress as a national 
gallerv of statuary, to which each State is invited to contribute 
two bronze or marble statues of her citizens illustrious for 
their historic renown or from distinguished civic and military 
services. It will be long before this silent congregation is 
complete. With tardy footsteps they slowly ascend their ped- 
estals ; voiceless orators, whose stony eloquence will salute and 
inspire the generations of freemen to come; bronze warriors, 
whose unsheathed swords seem vet to direct the onset, and 



Address. 261 

whose command will pass from century to century, inspiring 
an unbroken line of heroes to guard with ceaseless care the her- 
itage their valor won. 

Kansas is yet in her youth. She has no associations that 
are venerable bv age. All her dead have been the cotempo- 
raries of those who yet live. The verdict of posterity can only 
be anticipated. But, like all communities, we have had our 
heroic era, and it has closed. It terminated with the war which 
began within our borders, and it deserves a national commem- 
oration. I believe the concurring judgment of mankind would 
designate him as the conspicuous representative of this period 
in our history, and while Jiis image yet exists in the memories 
of his cotemporaries, so that accurate portraiture is possible^ 
I hope the people of Kansas will honor themselves by procur- 
ing his statue to be placed in this hall as a gift to the Nation. 
If the time has ever been when it would have been inappro- 
priate, when it might have wounded the sensibility or moved 
the indignation of any of our brethren, it has passed away. 
We are conciliated and we have forgotten. We have found 
"the sweet oblivious antidote" for all our sorrows. If Kansas 
makes this tardy recognition of one of her noblest sons, Vir- 
ginia can ill afford to remember that she hanged as a traitor 
the man whose cause the Nation espoused three years after- 
wards, and whose standard she seized from the gallows at 
Charlestown and bore in triumph to Appomattox Court-house. 

Mr. President, my task is done. I am conscious how imper- 
fectly and inadequately I have given expression to the sugges- 
tions of this memorable hour, but I feel that the communion 
of this auspicious day has not been in vain. We need to meas- 
ure ourselves by heroic standards, lest we become dwarfed by 
inaction. We require the tonic and stimulus of great examples, 



262 John James Ingalls. 

lest we become enervated by paltry considerations. We shall 
soon separate to meet no more. Let us bear away as we depart 
renewed resolves to devote ourselves to the preservation of the 
spirit and essence as well as the form of civil liberty. In a 
brief space we shall all be dispersed by death, and our homes, 
our fields, our possessions, our dignities, our duties will descend 
to our posterity. Let us bequeath to them unimpaired the 
priceless heritage which^^we have received from those who 
attested their faith with their lives. And if in the distant 
future the guarantees of constitutional liberty shall be assailed, 
and the patriot of another age turn for inspiration to this, he 
will find no grander example of heroic zeal and lofty self- 
devotion than "Old John Brown of Osawatomie." 

"They never fail who die 
In a great cause. The block may soak their gore ; 
Their heads may sodden in the sun; their hmbs 
Be strung to city gates and castle walls; 
But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years 
Elapse and others share as dark a doom, 
They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts 
Which overpower all others and conduct 
The world at last to Freedom." 



EULOGY. 

On the Death of Senator James B. Beck, of Kentucky. 

August 23, 1890. 



Mr. President: Rugged, robust, and indomitable, the incar- 
nation of physical force and intellectual energy. Senator Beck 
seemed a part of Nature, inseparable from life and exempt from 
infirmity. Accustomed for many sessions to the exhibition of 
his prodigious activity, his indefatigable labors, his strenuous 
conflicts, I recall the emotion with which I saw him a few 
months ago stand painfully in his place and announce with 
strange pathos that for the first time in twenty years he found 
himself unable to participate in debate. It was as if a torrent 
had paused midway in its descent, or a tempest had ceased 
suddenly in its stormy progress. He lingered for awhile, as 
the prostrate oak, to which he has been appropriately com- 
pared by his late colleague, retains its verdure for a brief inter- 
val after its fall, or as the flame flickers when the candle is 
burned oiit; but his work was done. It was the end. 

Estimated by comparison with his contemporaries, and 
measured by the limitations which he overcame, his career 
cannot be considered otherwise than as extraordinary and of 
singular and unusual distinction. An alien, and not favored 
by Fortune, he conquered the accidents of birth and the obsta- 
cles of race, scaled the formidable barriers of tradition, and rose 

by successive steps to the highest social and political station. 

263 



264 John James Ingalls. 

In a great State, proud of its history, of the lineage of 
its illustrious families, of the honor of its heroic names, of the 
achievements of its warriors and statesmen whose renown is 
the imperishable heritage of mankind, this stranger surpassed 
the swiftest in the race of ambition and the strongest in the 
strife for supremacy. His triumph was not temporary, the 
brilliant and casual episode of an aspiring and unscrupu- 
lous adventurer, but a steadfast and permanent conquest of 
the judgment and affections of an exalted constituencv. \or 
was the recognition of his superiority confined to Kentucky. 
Though he never forgot his nativity, nor the associations of 
his youth, he was by choice and preference, and not from neces- 
sity, an American. In his broad and generous nature patri- 
otism was a passion and allegiance a sacred and unalterable 
obligation. A partisan by instinct and conviction, there was 
nothing ignoble in his partisanship. He transgressed the 
boundaries of party in his friendships, and r^o appeal to his 
svmpathy or compassion was ever made in vain. 

He has departed. His term had not expired, but his name 
has been stricken from the rolls of the Senate. His credentials 
remain in its archives, but an honored successor sits unchal- 
lenged in his place. He has no vote nor voice, but the consid- 
eration of great measures affecting the interests of every citi- 
zen of the Republic is interrupted, with the concurrence and 
approval of all, that the representatives of forty-two common- 
wealths may rehearse the virtues and commemorate the career 
of an associate who is beyond the reach of praise or censure, 
in the kingdom of the dead. 

The right to live is, in human estimation, the most sacred, 
the most inviolable, the most inalienable. The joy of living 
in such a splendid and luminous day as this is inconceivable. 



Eulogy. 265 

To exist is exultation. To live forever is our sublimest hope. 
Annihilation, extinction, and eternal death are the forebodings 
of despair. To know, to love, to achieve, to triumph, to confer 
happiness, to alleviate misery, is rapture. The greatest crime 
and the severest penalty known to human law is the sacrifice 
and forfeiture of life. 

And yet we are all under sentence of death. Other events 
may or may not occur. Other conditions mav or may not 
exist. We may be rich or poor; we may be learned or ignor- 
ant; we may be happy or wretched; but we all must die. The 
verdict has been pronounced by the inexorable decree of an 
omnipotent tribunal. Without trial or opportunity for defense ; 
with no knowledge of the accuser or the nature and cause of 
the accusation; without being confronted with the witnesses 
against us — we have been summoned to the bar of life and con- 
demned to death. There is no writ of error nor review. There 
is neither exculpation nor appeal. All must be relinquished. 
Beauty and deformity, good and evil, virtue and vice, share 
the same relentless fate. The tender mother cries passionatelv 
for mercy for her first-born, but there is no clemencv. The 
craven felon sullenly prays for a moment in which to be aneled, 
but there is no reprieve. The soul helplessly beats its wings 
against the bars, shudders, and disappears. 

The proscription extends alike to the individual and the 
type. Nations die, and races expire. Humanity itself is des- 
tined to extinction. Sooner or later, it is the instruction of 
science, that the energy of the earth will be expended and it 
will become incapable of supporting life. A group of feeble 
and pallid survivors in some sheltered valley in the tropics 
will behold the sun sink below the horizon and the pitiless stars 
glitter in the midnight sky. The last man will perish, and the 



266 John James Ingalls. 

sun will rise upon the earth without an inhabitant. Its atmos- 
phere, its seas, its light and heat will vanish, and the planet 
will be an idle cinder uselessly spinning in its orbit. 

Every hour some world dies unnoticed in the firmament; 
some sun smolders to embers and ashes on the hearthstone of 
infinite space, and the mighty maze of systems sweeps ceaselessly 
onward in its voyage of doom to remorseless and unsparing 
destruction. 

With the disappearance of man from the earth all traces of 
his existence will be lost. The palaces, towers, and temples 
he has reared, the institutions he has established, the cities 
he has builded, the books he has written, the creeds he has 
constructed, the philosophies he has formulated — all science, 
art, literature, and knowledge will be obliterated and engulfed 
in empty and vacant oblivion. 

"The great globe itself, 
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, 
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded. 
Leave not a rack behind." 

There is an Intelligence so vast and enduring that the flam- 
ing inter\'al between the birth and death of universes is no more 
than the flash of fireflies above the meadows of summer; a 
colossal Power by which these stupendous orbs are launched 
in the abyss, like bubbles blown by a child in the morning sun, 
and Whose sense of justice and reason cannot be less potential 
than those immutable statutes that are the law of being to the 
creatures He has made, and which compel them to declare that 
if the only object of creation is destruction, if infinity is the 
theatre of an uninterrupted series of irreparable calamities, is 
the final cause of life is death, then time is an inexplicable 
tragedv, and eternity an illogical and indefensible catastrophe. 



Eui,OGY. 267 

This obsequy is for the quick, and not for the dead. It is 
not an inconsolable lamentation. It is a strain of triumph. 
It is an affirmation to those who survive, that as our departed 
associate, contemplating at the close of his life the monument 
of good deeds he had erected, more enduring than brass and 
loftier than the pyramids of kings, might exclaim with the 
Roman poet, "Non omnis mortar !" so, turning to the silent and 
unknown future, he could rely with just and reasonable confi- 
dence upon that most impressive and momentous assurance 
ever delivered to the human race : ' ' He that believeth in Me, 
though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth 
and believeth in Me shall never die." 



EULOGY. 

On the Death of Senator B. H. Hill, ok Georgla. 

Janiuiry 25, 1883. 



Ben Hill has gone to the undiscovered country. 

Whether his journey thither was but one step across an 
imperceptible frontier, or whether an interminable ocean, 
black, unlluctuating, and voiceless, stretches between these 
earthlv coasts and those invisible shores — we do not know. 

Whether on that August morning after death he saw a 
more glorious sun rise with unimaginable splendor above a 
celestial horizon, or whether his apathetic and unconscious 
ashes still sleep in cold obstruction and insensible oblivion — 
we do not know. 

Whether his strong and subtle energies found instant exer- 
cise in another forum; whether his dexterous and disciplined 
faculties are now contending in a higher Senate than ours for 
supremacv; or whether his powers were dissipated and dis- 
persed with his parting breath — we do not know. 

Whether his passions, ambitions, and affections still sway, 
attract, and impel ; whether he yet remembers us as we remem- 
ber him — we do not know. 

These are the unsolved, the insoluble problems of mortal 
life and human destiny, which prompted the troubled patriarch 
to ask that momentous question for which the centuries have 
given no answer: "If a man die, shall he live again?" 

266 



Eulogy. 269 

Every man is the center of a circle whose fatal circumfer- 
ence he cannot pass, ^^'ithin its narrow confines he is poten- 
tial, beyond it he perishes; and if immortality be a splendid 
but delusive dream, if the incompleteness of everv career, even 
the longest and most fortunate, be not supplemented and per- 
fected after its termination here, then he who dreads to die 
should fear to live, for life is a tragedy more desolate and inex- 
plicable than death. 

Of all the dead whose obsequies we have paused to solem- 
nize in this chamber, I recall no one whose untimely fate seems 
so lamentable, and yet so rich in prophecy of eternal life, as that 
of Senator Hill. He had reached the meridian of his years. 
He stood upon the high plateau of middle life, in that serene 
atmosphere where temptation no longer assails, w^here the clam- 
orous passions no more distract, and where the conditions are 
most favorable for noble and enduring achievements. His up- 
ward path had been through stormy adversity and conten- 
tion, such as infrequently falls to the lot of men. Though not 
without the tendency to meditation, reverie, and introspec- 
tion which accompanies genius, his temperament was palestric. 
He was competitive and unpeaceful. He was born a polemic 
and controversialist, intcllectuallv pugnacious and combative, 
so that he was impelled to defend any position that might be 
assailed or to attack any position that might be entrenched, 
not because the defense or the assault were essential, but 
because the positions were maintained and that those who held 
them became by that fact alone his adversaries. This tend- 
ency of his nature made his orbit erratic. He was meteoric 
rather than planetary, and flashed with irregular splendor 
rather than shone with steady and penetrating rays. His 
advocacv of any cause was fearless to the verge of temer- 



270 John James Ingalls. 

ity. He appeared to be indifferent to applause or censure 
for their own sake. He accepted intrepidly any conclusions 
that he reached, without inquiring whether they were polite or 
expedient. 

To such a spirit partisanship was unavoidable; but with 
Senator Hill it did not degenerate into^bigotry. He was ca- 
pable of broad generosity, and extended to his opponents 
the same unreserved candor which he demanded for him- 
self. His oratory was impetuous and devoid of artifice. He 
was not a posturer nor phrase-monger. He was too intense, 
too earnest, to employ the cheap and paltry decorations of 
discourse. He never reconnoitered a hostile position nor ap- 
proached it by stealthy parallels. He could not lay siege 
to an enemy, nor beleaguer him, nor open trenches, and sap 
and mine. His method was the charge and the onset. He was 
the Murat of senatorial debate. Not many men of this gen- 
eration have been better equipped for parliamentary warfare 
than he, with his commanding presence, his sinewy diction, his 
confidence and imperturbable self-control. 

But in the maturity of his powers and his fame, with un- 
measured opportunities for achievement apparently before him, 
with great designs unaccomplished, surrounded by the proud 
and affectionate solicitude of a great constituency, the pallid 
messenger with the inverted torch beckoned him to depart. 
There are few scenes in history more tragic than that protracted 
combat with death. No man had greater inducements to live. 
But in the long struggle against the inexorable advances of an 
insidious and mortal malady he did not falter nor repine. He 
retreated with the aspect of a victor; and though he suc- 
cumbed, he seemed to conquer. His sun went down at noon, 
but it sank amid the prophetic splendors of an eternal dawn. 



Eulogy. 271 

With more than a hero's courage, with more than a mar- 
tyr's fortitude, he waited the approach of the inevitable hour, 
and went — to the undiscovered countrv. ! 



EULOGY. 

Ox THE Death of Coxgressma.x James N. Burnes, o.f 

Missouri. 

January 24, 1889. * 



Mr. President : These are the cuhninating hours of a closing 
scene in the drama of national life. When this day returns, 
one political party will relinquish and another assume the exec- 
utive functions of government. On every hand are visible the 
preparations to "welcome the coming and speed the parting 
guest." At the eastern portico already stands the stage on 
which the great actors will play their parts, in the presence of 
a mighty audience, amid the mimic pomp and circumstance of 
war, with the splendor of banners, music's martial strains, and 
the hoarse salutations of accentuating guns. 

"Enterprises of great pith and moment" wait upon the 
event of the brief interval. While Pleasure wanders restlessly 
through the corridors of the Capitol, Hope and Fear, Ambition, 
Cupidity, and Revenge sit in the galleries or stand at the gates, 
eager, like dying Elizabeth, to exchange millions of money for 
the inch of time upon which success or failure, wealth or pen- 
ury, honor or obloquy depend. 

At this juncture and crisis, when each instant is priceless, 
disregarding every inducement, resisting every incentive and 
solicitation, the Senate proceeds, by unanimous consent, to 

consider resolutions of the highest privilege, reported from no 

272 



Eulogy. 273 

committee, having no place upon any calendar, but which take 
precedence of unfinished business and special order, upon 
which the yeas and nays are never called, and no negative vote 
is ever recorded, and reverently pauses, in obedience to the 
holiest impulse of human nature, to contemplate the profound- 
est mystery of human destiny — the mystery of death. 
/- In the democracy of the dead all men at last are equal. 
There is neither rank nor station nor prerogative in the repub- 
lic of the grave. At this fatal threshold the philosopher ceases 
to be wise, and the song of the poet is silent. Dives relinquishes 
his millions and Lazarus his rags. The poor man is as rich as 
the richest, and the rich man is as poor as the pauper. The 
creditor loses his usury, and the debtor is acquitted of his obli- 
gation. There the proud man surrenders his dignities, the pol- 
itician his honors, the worldling his pleasures; the invalid needs 
no physician, and the laborer rests from unrequited toil. 

Here at last is Nature's final decree in equity. The wrongs 
of time are redressed. Injustice is expiated, the irony of fate 
is refuted ; the uneqtial distribution of wealth, honor, capacity, 
pleasure, and opportunity, which make life such a cruel and in- 
explicable tragedy, ceases in the realm of death. The strong- 
est there has no supremacy, and the weakest needs no defense. 
The mightiest captain succumbs to that invincible adversary, 
who disarms alike the victor and the vanquished. 

James Nelson Burnes, whose death we deplore to-day, was 
a man whom Plutarch might have described or Van Dyke 
delineated; massive, rugged, and robust; in motion slow; in 
speech sonorous and deliberate; grave in aspect; serious in 
demeanor; of antique and heroic mould; the incarnation of 
force, energy, and power. 



274 John James Ingalls. 

Xot perplexed by moral abstractions nor mental subtleties, 
he possessed that assemblage of qualities which makes success 
in practical affairs inevitable. Great enterprises were natural 
to hini. Breadth, grasp, and comprehension characterized 
his projects. Early perceiving the enormous possibilities of 
the valley of the Missouri, longer than the Amazon and more 
fertile than the Nile, he immediately identified himself with 
the forces which have developed the empire of the Northwest, 
made the American Desert an oasis, and abolished the frontier. 
At the bar, on the bench, in business and politics, he was 
foremost for a ciuarlcr of a century. 

When we first met, St. Louis was an outpost of civilization, 
and Jefferson City the farthest point reached by railroad. In 
all that vast region, from the sparse settlements along the Mis- 
souri to the Sierra Nevada, from the Arkansas to the Yellow- 
stone — now the abode of millions, soon to be represented in 
this chamber — there was neither husbandry nor harvest, hab- 
itation nor home, save the casual encampments of the Bed- 
ouins of the plains, more savage than the beasts they slew. 

We were neighbors, as that word goes in the West. Twenty 
miles to the northward, across the turbid stream, the level bars 
of tavvny sand, and the vast expanse of primeval forest, were 
visible from my door, in the morning and evening sun, the spires 
and the towers of the city where he dwelt, and with whose 
history his name will be indissolubly associated. Here, in a 
stately home,' with ample fortune, equipage, and retinue, sur- 
rounded by a family he adored, by friends devoted to him, 
and by enemies whom he had overcome, he confidently antici- 
pated larger triumphs and loftier honors yet to be. 

As I looked for the last time upon that countenance from 
which for the first time in so many years no glance of kindly 



Eulogy. 275 

recognition nor word of welcome came, I reflected upon the 
impenetraWe and insoluble mystery of death. But if death 
be the end ; if the life of Burnes terminated upon ' ' this bank 
and shoal of time," if no morning is to dawn upon the night in 
which he sleeps — then sorrow has no consolation, and this 
impressive and solemn ceremony which we observe to-day has 
no more significance than the painted pageant of the stage. 
If the existence of Burnes was but a troubled dream, his death 
oblivion, what avails it that the Senate should pause to recount 
his virtues ; and that his associates should assemble in solemn 
sorrow around his voiceless sepulchre? Neither veneration nor 
reverence is due the dead if they are but dust; no cenotaph 
should be reared to preserve for posterity the memory of 
their achievements if those who come after them are to be 
only their successors in annihilation and extinction. 

Unless we survive, the ties of birth, affection, and friend- 
ship are a delusive mockery ; the structure of laws and customs 
upon which society is based, a detected imposture; the codes 
of morality and justice, the sentiments of gratitude and faith, 
are empty formulas, without force or consecration. If in this 
world only we have hope and consciousness, why should their 
inculcations be heeded? Duty must be a chimera. Our pas- 
sions and our pleasures should be the guides of conduct, and 
virtue is indeed a superstition if life ends at the grave. 

This is the conclusion which the philosophy of negation 
must accept at last. Such is the felicity of those degrading 
precepts which make the epitaph the end. If these teachers 
are right, if the life of Burnes is like an arrow that is spent, 
then we are atoms in a moral chaos ; obedience to law is inde- 
fensible servitude; rulers and magistrates are despots toler- 
ated only by popular imbecility; justice is a denial of liberty; 



276 John James Ingalls. 

honor and truth are trivial rhapsodies; murder and perjury- 
are derisive jests, and their harsh definitions are frivolous 
phrases invented by tyrants to impose on the timidity of 
cowards and the credulity of slaves. 

If the life of Bumes is as a taper that is burned out, then 
we treasure his memory and his example in vain, and the latest 
prayer of his departing spirit has no more sanctity to us, who 
soon or late must follow him, than the whisper of winds that 
stir the leaves of the protesting forest, or the murmur of waves 
that break upon the complaining shore. 



/ 



FIAT JUSTITIA. 



(Speech in the Senate of the United States, Thursday, January 23, 1890.) 

Mr. Ingalls : Mr. President, pursuant to notice heretofore 
given, I move that the Senate do now proceed to the considera- 
tion of the bill offered by the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. 
Butler], and I ask that it may be read at length for information. 

The VicE-Presidknt : The bill will be read at length. 

The Chief Clerk read the bill (S. 1121) to provide for the 
emigration of persons of color from the Southern States, as 
follows : 

"Be it enacted, etc., That upon the appHcation of any person of color 
to the nearest United States Commissioner, setting forth that he, she, or 
they desire to emigrate from any of the Southern States, and designating 
the point to which he, she, or they wish to go, with a view to citizenship 
and permanent residence in said country, and also setting forth that he, 
she, or they are too poor to pay the necessary travehng expenses, and that 
the move is intended to be permanent and is made in good faith, and shall 
verify said appUcation under oath before said Commissioner, it shall be 
the duty of said Commissioner to trasmit said application with a written 
statement, giving his opinion as to the merits and bona fides of said appU- 
cation, to the Quartermaster-General of the Army, and shall be allowed a 
fee of 50 cents for each of said appHcations ; but in no case will fees be 
allowed for more than one appUcation for each family, the members of 
which shall be included in one application by the head of the same. And 
in the case where the appUcation is made by an adult person without a 
family and on his or her own behalf, then the same allowance of 50 cents 
shall be allowed for such appUcation 

"Sec. 2. That it shall be the duty of the Quartermaster-General, on 
receipt of said application, to furnish transportation in kind for the person 
or persons embraced therein, by the nearest practicable route from the 
home of the appUcant or appUcants to the point of destination, and upon 

277 



278 John James Ixgalls. 

the cheapest and most economical plan, whether liy railroad or water 
transportation, and shall account for the same to the proper accounting 
officers of the Government, as is now provided by law. 

"Sec. 3. That the sum of $5,000,000 be, and the same is hereby, 
appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropri- 
ated, to enable the Quartermaster-General to carry out the provisions of 
this act. 

"Sec. 4. That the Quartermaster-General be, and he is hereby, 
authorized and directed to prepare forms of application, verification, etc., 
to be used under the provisions of this act, and such rules and regulations 
as may be necessary to protect the Government against imposition, to be 
furnished to any United States Commissioners upon i)roper application 
or requisition, free of charge, and shall report the same to Congress for its 
information." 

Mr. Ingalls: Mr. President, the race to which we belong 
is the most arrogant and rapacious, the most exclusive and 
indomitable in history. It is the conquering and the uncon- 
querable race, through which alone man has taken possession 
of the physical and moral world. To our race himianity is 
indebted for religion, for literature, for civilization. It has a 
genius for conquest, for politics, for jurisprudence, and for 
administration. The home and the family are its contribu- 
tions to society. Individualism, fraternity, liberty, and equal- 
ity have been its contributions to the State. All other races 
have been its enemies or its victims. 

This, sir, is not the time, nor is this the occasion, to con- 
sider the profoundly interesting question of the unity of races. 
It is sulBcient to say that either by instinct or design the Cau- 
casian race at every step of its progress from barbarism to 
enlightenment has refused to mingle its blood or assimilate with 
the two other great human families, the Mongolian and the 
African, and has persistently rejected adulteration. It has 
found the fullest and most complete realization of its funda- 
mental ideas of government and society upon this continent, 



Fiat Justitia. 279 

and there can be no doubt that upon this arena its future and 
most magnificent triumphs are to be accomphshed. 

The exiles of Plymouth and of Jamestown brought hither 
political and social ideas which have developed with inconceiv- 
able energy and power. They ventured upon a hitherto untried 
experiment, a daring innovation, a paradox in government. 
They who rule are those who are to be governed. The rulers 
frame the law to which they themselves must submit. The 
kings are the subjects, and those who are free voluntarilv sur- 
render a portion of their freedom that their own liberties may 
be more secure. The ablest soothsayer could not have foretold 
the wonderful development of tlie first century of American 
nationality, the increase of population, the expanse of bound- 
ary, the aggrandizement of resources. The frontier has been 
abolished; the climate has been conquered; the desert sub- 
dued. For these conditions, which could not have been pre- 
dicted, for which there were neither maxims, nor formulas, nor 
precedents, the genius of the Caucasian race has furnished an 
equivalent in the Constitution under which we live, an organic 
law flexible enough to permit indefinite and unlimited expan- 
sion, and at the same time rigid enough hitherto to protect the 
rights of the weakest and the humblest from invasion. 

From its latent resources have been evoked vast and unsus- 
pected powers that have become the charters of liberty to the 
victims of its misconstruction; beneath its beneficent cove- 
nants everv faith has found a shelter, every creed a sanctuary, 
and every wrong redress. It has reconciled interests that were 
apparently in irrepressible conflict. It has resisted the rancor 
of party spirit, the vehemence of faction, the perils of foreign 
immigration, the collision of civil war, the jealous menace of 
foreign and hostile nations. It has realized up to this time 



28o John James Ingalls. 

the splendid dream of the great English apostle of modem lib- 
erty, who said in the midst of the struggle for the dismember- 
ment of the American Union : 

"I have another and a broader vision before my gaze. It may be a vis- 
ion, but I cherish it. I see one vast confederation reaching from the frozen 
North in unbroken Une to the glowing South, and from the wild billows of 
the Atlantic to the calmer waters of the Pacific main ; and I see one peo- 
ple and one language, and one law and one faith, and all over that wide con- 
tinent a home of freedom and a refuge for the oppressed of every race and 
every clime." 

Upon the threshold of our second century, Mr. President, 
we are confronted with the most formidable and portentous 
problem ever submitted to a free people for solution ; complex, 
unprecedented, involving social, moral, and political considera- 
tions, party supremacy, and in the estimation of many, though 
not in my own, in its ultimate consequences the existence of 
our system of government. Its gravity cannot be exagger- 
ated and its discussion has been deferred too long. Its solu- 
tion will demand all the resources of the statesmanship of the 
present and the future to prevent a crisis that may become a 
catastrophe. It should be approached with candor, with sol- 
emnity, with patriotic purpose, with earnest scrutiny, without 
subterfuge and without reserve. 

Let me state it in the language of one of the most brilliant, 
the most impassioned and powerful of all the orators of the 
.South, now unfortimately no more. When Grady died, a lumi- 
nous and dazzling meteor disappeared from the Southern firm- 
■ament. I regret that I never met him. On his journey home- 
ward from Boston he sent me a message from his car, where 
he lay ill, which reached me too late to enable me to see him, 
and now he has departed for the undiscovered country. But 
though dead he yet speaketh, and I will ask the Secretary to 



Fiat Justitia. 281 

read an extract from that extraordinary oration which he deliv- 
erd before the merchants of Boston in December last upon the 
race problem in the South. 

The Chief Clerk read as follows: 

"Note its appalling conditions. Two utterly dissimilar races on the 
same soil, with equal poUtical and civil rights; almost equal in num- 
bers, but terribly unequal in intelligence and responsibility ; each pledged 
against fusion; one for a century in servitude to the other, and freed at 
last by a desolating war; the experiment sought by neither, but ap- 
proached by both with doubt — these are the conditions. Under these, 
adverse at every point, we are required to carry these two races in peace 
and honor to the end. 

"Never, sir, has such a task been given to mortal stewardship. Never 
before in this Republic has the white race divided on the rights of an alien 
race. The red man was cut down as a weed because he hindered the way 
of the American citizen. The yellow man was shut out of this RepubUc 
because he is an alien and inferior. The red man was the owner of the 
land; the yellow man highly civilized and assimilable; but they hindered 
both sections and are gone. But the black man, clothed with every priv- 
ilege of government, affecting but one section, is pinned to the soil, and 
my people commanded to make good at any hazard and at any cost his 
full and equal heirship of American privilege and prosperity. It matters 
not that every other race has been routed or excluded without rhyme or 
reason. It matters not that wherever the \vhites and blacks have touched, 
in any era or in any clime, there has been irreconcilable violence. It mat- 
ters not that no two races, however similar, have ever Hved anywhere at 
any time on the same soil with equal rights in peace. In spite of these 
things, we are commanded to make good this change of American policy, 
which has not perhaps changed American prejudice; to make certain 
here what has elsewhere been impossible between whites and blacks; and 
to reverse under the very worst conditions the universal verdict of racial 
history." 

Mr. IngaIvLS: Let me state, Mr. President, the arithmetic 
of this problem. In i860 there were 4,440,000 negroes, slave 
and free, in the United States; in 1870, 4,480,000; in 1880, 
6,580,000. The increase from i860 to 1870 was 40,000, and 
from 1870 to 1880 it was 2,100,000, in increase which, I may say 
in passing, I believe can only be accounted for upon the theory 



282 John James Ingalls. 

of a deliberate, premeditated, and intentional fraud upon the 

census. This would make an increase for the last decade of 35 

per cent, while the entire population of the country increased 

not quite 30 per cent in that interval, immigration included. 

In Louisiana the increase was i ig,ooo, while the whites increase 

but 92,000. In Georgia the increase was 178,000 whites and 

180,000 blacks. In Mississippi, about which I shall have 

something to say hereafter, the increase was 97,000 whites and 

200,000 blacks. In South Carolina it was 102,000 whites and 

189,000 blacks. 

But whether this extraordinary and unprecedented increase 

was due to a desire for additional representation or not, it may 

be admitted that the numerical increase of the colored race 

was undoubtedly considerable, and it may be conceded, I think, 

that with the improvement in their physical condition and their 

observance of the laws of longevity the ratio will probably 

grow larger, so that by the close of this century there will pos- 

siblv be not less than fifteen millions of the black and colored 

races upon this continent. 

, The problem is still further complicated by the fact that 

thev are gregarious. They instinctively separate themselves 

into their own communities, with their own habits, their own 
t 

customs, their own methods of life. They worship separately 
and they are taught separately. The line of cleavage between 
the whites and blacks is becoming constantly more distinct and 
perceptible. There is neither amalgamation nor absorption 
, nor assimilation. Politically they are affiliated with the vic- 
tors in the late Civil War. vSocially, and b\- locality and resi- 
dence, they are indissolubly associated with the vanquished. 
Will this experiment, which has failed elsewhere, succeed here? 
Can the black race exist as citizens of the United States upon 



Fiat Justitia. 283 

terms of political equality with the Caucasian race? If not, 
why not? What must be done with them ? This is the problem. 

Mr. Frederick Douglass, the most illustrious living repre- 
sentative of his race — greater, I think, by his Caucasian re- 
enforcement than by his African blood— once said to me that 
he thought as prejudice and social and political antagonism 
disappeared the races would blend, coalesce, and become homo- 
genous. I do not agree with him. There is no natural affinity 
between the races, and this solution of the problem is impos- 
sible, and, in my opinion, would be most deplorable. Events 
have shown that the relations between the sexes in the time of 
slavery were compulsory and have disappeared with freedom. 
The hvbrids were the product of white fathers and black moth- 
ers, and seldom or never of black fathers and white mothers, 
and the inference from this result ethnologically is conclusive 
of that question. Such a solution, in my judgment, would 
perpetuate the vices of both races and the virtues of neither. 
There is no blood-poison so fatal as adulteration of race. — |- 

Races that cannot intermarry do not blend and become 
homogeneous. Englishmen. Irishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, 
and Scandinavians emigrate and in a generation they are Amer- 
icans ; their blood mingles with the great current of our national 
life, and of its alien origin nothing remains but a memory, a 
name, a tradition. Sometimes the invader becomes the con- 
queror, like the Tartar in China, the Normans in England; but 
history contains no record of two separate races peacefully 
existing upon terms of absolute social and political equality 
under the same system of government. Antagonism is inev- 
itable. They become rivals and competitors, and in the strug- 
gle for supremacy the weaker has gone down. 



284 John James Ingalls. 

The leaders of opinion in the South have evidently reached 
the conclusion that the present state of affairs cannot continue 
indefinitely, and the Senators from Alabama, South Carolina, 
and Florida, together with the editors of many newspapers 
and many orators, have invited and opened this debate. Thus 
far it has been conducted with unimpassioned and philosophic 
decorum and deliberation, which I shall endeavor to imitate. 
The Senator from South Carolina deprecated vituperation. 
It shall not come ; it is not necessary. The most mordant and 
biting criticism that can be made about the situation in the 
South is — the truth. 

I shall be impartial and judicial as far as I may be able; 
and in that vein I admit that historically the responsibility for 
the presence of the African race upon this continent is not con- 
fined to the States that rebelled in 1861, but belongs indiscrim- 
inately, share and share alike, to all the white people of the 
United States, North and South. Slavery retired from the 
valleys of the Merimac, the Connecticut, and the Hudson to 
the Potomac and southward, by the operation of social, eco- 
nomic, and natural laws, and not through the superior morality 
of those who defended the Union against the assaults of treason. 
I am a native of Massachusetts. My ancestors held slaves 
in that State in the last century. I remember when a child 
with what interest I read in the school-books that poem 
begiruiing : 

" Chain' d in the market-place he stood, 
A man of giant frame ; 
Before the gath'ring multitude, 
That shrunk to hear his name." 

I recall the teachings of Wendell Phillips and Lloyd Garrison 
and the other apostles of human freedom. Wendell Phillips, 



Fiat Justitia. 285 

Lloyd Garrison, and Lovejoy were as right in 1850 as they were 
in i860, but their appeals fell upon deaf ears in the land of the 
Puritans. Abolitionists were mobbed, despitefully and con- 
tumeliously treated, reviled and outlawed by the highest so- 
cial classes. The conscience of New England never was thor- 
oughly aroused to the immorality of African slavery until it 
ceased to be profitable, and the North did not finally deter- 
mine to destroy the system until convinced that its continuance 
threatened not only their industrial independence, but their 
political supremacy. 

Further, Mr. President, it may be admitted that the eman- 
cipation of the slaves was not contemplated by any consider- 
able portion of the American people when the war for the Union 
began; and it was not brought to pass until the fortunes of 
war became desperate, and was then justified and defended 
upon the plea of military necessity. 

Enfranchisement was logical and inevitable, but it was not, 
as the Senator from Florida [Mr. Pasco] said in his speech the 
other day, "A device to secure the perpetuation of power in 
the Republican party." That stale calumny, sir, is old enough 
to be superannuated and placed on the retired list. On the 
contrary, the apprehensive reluctance of the victors to confer 
citizenship and suffrage upon the freedmen was overcome only 
by incontrovertible evidence that the vanquished intended to 
reduce . them to a condition of ser\ntude more degraded and 
revolting than that from which they had been redeemed. 

I will go one step further, Mr. President, and say that the 
Africanization of this continent, or of any considerable part 
of it, is not desirable. Were the colored race not here, the 
probabilities are strong that they would not be invited to 
come here. The proposition originally to introduce seven 



286 John James Ingalls. 

million Africans would be discussed with gerat deliberation 
before it would be accepted ; and I may supplement this state- 
ment with the additional opinion that were they not here, 
rather than endure what they have suffered in two centuries 
of slavery and twenty-five years of ostensible freedom, they 
would unanimously prefer to continue in association with 
their kindred in the Dark Continent. 

But they are here, Mr. President, without their volition or 
our own. They are natives ; they are citizens. Man for man, 
the\- are oui^olitical equals. They came hereJ^ivoluntarily 
as prisoners of _vvar, captured_in battle. They are of ancient 
lin^eage, genuine F. F^V.s, for the earliest migration was in 
August. i_6i^, antedating the historic voyage of the Mayflower. 
As slaves, they drained the marshes, they felled the forests, 
they cultivated the fields, and assisted by their unrecjuited 
toil in piling up the accumlated wealth of the Nation. And, 
sir, while their masters were absent in camp and field, doing 
battle to rivet more firmly the chains bv which they were 
bound and to make slavery the corner-stone of a new social 
and political structure, they remained upon the plantations 
and in the cities in charge of the estates and of the families 
of their owners, raising the supplies without which the war 
could not have been prolonged. General insurrections and ser- 
vile uprisings would have dissolved the Confederate armies; 
but they did not occur. Docile, faithful, and submissive, the 
slaves were guilty of no violence against person or property. 
They lighted no midnight flame; they shed no innocent blood. 
It seems incredible that gratitude should not have defended 
and sheltered them from the hideous and indescribable wrongs 
and crimes of which they have been for a quarter of a century 
the guiltless and unresisting victims. 



Fiat Justitia. 287 

The same impulses, sir, that made them loyal to their 
masters during the war have made them faithful to their deliv- 
erers since. Their allegiance to the party of Lincoln and of 
Grant is persistent and unswerving. Their instincts were more 
infallible than reason. They have voted with their friends. 
They have begun to acquire homes and property. They have 
filled savings-banks with their earnings. They have assumed 
definite domestic relations. They have gathered about the 
school-master, and eagerly studied the alphabet, the primer 
and the Bible. By their sobriety, by their obedience to law, 
by their decorous demeanor, they have justified the temerity 
of those who dared to maintain that they possessed intelligence 
superior to the brutes and souls that were immortal. 

But it can no longer be denied that suffrage and citizen- 
ship have hitherto not justified the anticipations of those by 
whom they were conferred. They have not been effective in 
the hands of the freedmen, either for attack or defense. They 
have been neither shield nor sword. Citizenship to them has 
been a name and suffrage a mockery. Force and violence 
have confessedly been supplemented and supplanted by fraud, 
which is safer and equally efficient. The suppression of the 
black vote is practically complete. The evidence is conclu- 
sive, it is overwhelming from every quarter. North and South, 
from Democrats and Republicans, from senators, editors, and 
orators, that the whites of the South have deliberately deter- 
mined to eliminate the negro as the controlling factor from 
their social and political system. 

I have some testimony on this point, and I shall quote 
none but Southern men and members of the Democratic party 
upon the subject. I refer once more to the significant, extraor- 
dinary oration delivered by the Georgia orator in Boston. Re- 



288 John James Ingalls. 

ferring to the President 's message — and he was there for the 
purpose of speaking to the people of New England and the 
country about the race problem in the South — referring to 
the President's message, he says : 

"But we are asked, 'When will the negro cast a free ballot?' " 

Does he say that the negro does cast a free ballot ? No, sir. 

He says: 

"When the ignorant, anywhere, can cast a ballot not dominated by the 
will of the intelligent; when the laborer, anj'^vhere — " 

and this shows his want of conception and comprehension of 
the relations between the laborer and the employer — 

"when the laborer, anywhere, casts his vote unhindered by his boss; when 
the poor ever>'where are not influenced by the money and devices of the 
rich ; when the might of the strong and the responsible will not everywhere 
control the suffrage of the weak and the shiftless — then, and not till then, 
will the ballot of the negro be free." 

I quote from a Democratic newspaper on the i6th of Octo- 
ber, 1889, in Tennessee, in commenting upon what was called 
the election in Mississippi last fall. It seems that the Mem- 
phis Avalanche had published in an editorial the following 
statement : 

"About the size of the situation in Mississippi is, that Chalmers could 
not get the office of governor, no matter how large his vote might be." 

The St. Louis Republic thought this was a rash remark for 
a Democratic newspaper in Tennessee to make, and so it gen- 
tly and mildly reproached and reproved the editor for his un- 
guarded declaration ; whereupon the newspaper that had been 
chided comes back with another editorial in answer to the St- 
Louis Republic, and says : 

1 "We may say in passing, however, that the white — or, in other words, 
the Democratic — vote of this district is much greater than the Repubhcan 



Fiat Justitia. 289 

vote, and that it is notorious that Mr. Phelan received practically all of it. 
It is equally well established that General Chalmers could not control the 
negro vote of the Second Mississippi District, while his opponent, Judge 
Morgan, obtained the united and enthusiastic support of his partv. 
"But this is not to the point," 

says this candid editor on the i6th of October. I am not 
going into the crypts of the past, Mr. President. This is not 
an archaeological research. These are no torsos and relics, no 
cadavers exhumed for political purposes during the campaign. 
It is an utterance on the i6th of October, 1889, about a canvass 
then pending. Says the editor : 

"The Republic will please take notice that the white people of the South 
do not intend to submit to be governed by negroes in any manner whatso- 
ever. They have said so in deeds at every election for twenty years, and 
henceforth they mean to assert it in words. There ought to be no misun- 
derstanding whatever. The Xorthern Republican press and the South- 
hating politicians of the North may make all the capital of it they please. 
God Almighty never intended, the framers of the Constitution never in- 
tended that the descendants of African slaves should rule America or any 
])art of it. 

"We trust we have been sufficiently explicit on this occasion to satisfy 
our esteemed contemporary, the Republic, and all other inquiring friends." 

As the result of that determination on the part of the 
Democrats of Mississippi, General Chalmers, who was the 
candidate of the Republican party for governor, a native, I 
believe, of that vState, certainly of the South, a Confederate 
Avithout fear and without reproach, was compelled to abandon 
liis campaign, and he issued a final address, from which I will 
read a few extracts: 

"As Republicans of Mississippi, we are compelled to withdraw our 
State ticket. We knew that our votes would be stolen or voters driven 
from the polls, but we hoped in the large towns and cities at least the sem- 
"blance of free speech might still remain to us ; but our candidates are not 
safely allowed to discuss our protest. Our course has always been con- 
servative. When the armed revolution of 1875 wrested the State from 



290 John James Ingalls. 

us, Mississippi was the only Southern State unburdened with a State debt . 
The Constitution of the United States guarantees to each State a repub- 
lican form of government. Mississippi is governed by a minority despot- 
ism, and we appeal to our country for redress. The Constitution that we 
adopted is the only one in the South so satisfactory that it has not been 
changed. 

"()ur laws stand sul srantially unchanged and unrepealed, but we are 
Republicans, and this is cur offense. That we are not actuated by cow- 
ardice in withdrawing from the contest is shown by the past. For four- 
teen years, ever since the infamous Mississippi plan was adopted, our path 
has been marked by the blood of our slain. Not only the well-known 
leaders who bravely died at the head of the column, but the faithful fol- 
lowers known only in the cabin of the lowly We refer not only to such 
well-known slaughters as Kemper and Copiah, Clinton and Carrollton, ai 
A\'ahallak and \'icksburg, Yazoo City and Leflore, but to the nameless, 
killing by creek and bayou, on highway and byway. They are the Demo- 
cratic arguments which crush us. We can do no more. We dare no- 
longer carry our battered and blood-stained Republican flag. We appeal 
to the Nation." 

And so, Mr. President, the campaign closed, the candi- 
dates withdrew ; the election was practically conceded to 
those who, by this tyranny and despotism, had prevented the 
exercise of the right of suffrage by American citizens. This I 
consider as one of the most tragic utterances that ever occurred 
in political history. 

There are other illustrations of the purpose and determin- 
ation of the Southern whites to prevent absolutely the exercise 
of political rights by colored Republicans. There was an 
election, or what was called an election, in this same State of 
Mississippi on the 6th day of the present month, seventeen 
days ago. There had been a previous one in the same town, 
with which the country is somewhat familiar. I will ask the 
Chief Clerk to read an extract from the Jackson (Mississippi) 
Clarion, printed on the second day of January, 1890, twenty- 
one days ago. 

The Chief Clerk read as follows: 



Fiat Justitia. 291 

"Who Cares? — The Boys Are Coming. 
"The Yazoo Democrats will be here Monday to see there is a fair election. 

Who cares if the McGill men don't like it? 
The Leflore Tigers will be here Monday to see there is a fair election. 

Who cares if the McGill men don't like it? 
The Copiah Rehables will be here Monday to see there is a fair election; 

Who cares if the McGill men don't like it? 
The Rankin Rangers will be here Monday to see there is a fair election. 

Who cares if the McGill men don't like it? 
The Warren Warriors will be here Monday to see there is a fair election. 

Who cares if the McGill men don't like it?- 
The Madison Guards will be here Monday to see there is a fair election. 

Who cares if the McGill men don't like it? 
The Bolton Boys will be here Monday to see there is a fair election. 

Who cares if the McGill men don't like it? 
The Raymond Rifles will be here Monday to see there is a fair election. 

Who cares if the McGill men don't like it? 
The Clinton Corps will be here Monday to see there is a fair election. 

Who cares if the McGill men don't like it? 
The Terry Terribles will be here Monday to see there is a fair election. 

Who cares if the McGill men don't like it? 
The Byram Bulldozers will be here Monday to see there is a fair election. 

Who cares if the McGill men don't like it? 
The Edwards Dragoons will be here Monday to see there is a fair election. 

Who cares if the McGill men don't like it? 
What are they going to do about it, whether they like it or not? 
The boys are coming, ten hundred strong. 
The whole State of Mississippi is interested in the election. 
It shall be a Democratic victory." 

Mr. Ingalls: They were all there, Mr. President. Here 
is the way it was done; here is the way an election was held 
in one of the sovereign States of this Union three weeks ago. 
This correspondent says: 

"It was the most outrageous thing I ever saw. All the toughs, mur- 
derers, etc., in the State were here with their \\'inchester rifles, and took 
possession of the city. The polls were in the possession of an armed mob. 
who would not allow a negro to come within one hundred yards of the 
polls. The court-house was just filled upstairs and downstairs with them. 
The Edmonds House was full of Winchester rifles, two men in each win- 
dow, with their guns pointing down at the box 



292 JoHx James Ingalls. 

"The other voting-place in the nortli ward was at the Hook and Ladder 
Hall. Upstairs is the armory of the State Militia ; that was filled with men, 
who were ready at the word to let them go. The voting downstairs was 
done with closed doors, and no one was allowed in there except the voters, 
and they only one at a time. They gave it out that the first man that 
attempted to vote — a negro — would be shot down." 

And so on. 1 have another letter from a j^^entlenian. 
known, perhaps, to inan\ nRinbers nf this l)i>cl\-, from the same 
city, dated on the ulh of Jantiary, l\)urteen days ago — a United 
States ofticcr, the register of a land office — and he savs: 



■ j>>' 



"It was the worst and most open defiance of law I ever saw. 'Jim' 
Liddell was here with his crowd of "Swamp Angels' '^for this badge was worn 
by them all — a green silk ribbon with 'Swamp Angel" on it). They were 
the same men who killed the negroes at CarroUton's. Cattle George, 
Senator George's son, was I.iddell's lieutenant, and another younger son of 
George's was here in the party with his Winchester Va/oo, Madison, 
Rankin, and all were here, armed to the teeth. Xow, I wish to make this 
point clear: they wore badges with White Supremacy' on them. The 
same magic words headed their hand-bills and apjjcals for outside aid. 
Yet everyone in Jackson knew that the registration closed with 240 major- 
ity of white voters on the lists. Now, where was the fear of ' nigger' rule 
this time? It was Republican rule they will not submit to." 

And more to the same elTect. Is it any wonder, Mr. Pres- 
ident, that Democrats become alarmed at this condition of 
affairs? 1 have a published interview here with a gentleman 
described as Hon. Frank Burkitt. He is alleged to be a Dem- 
ocrat. The interview appeared in the Memphis (Tennessee) 
Commercial. It is dated Jackson. Mississippi, Jantiary 10, thir- 
teen days ago, and he says ; 

"In this State there are two factions of the Democratic party, equally 
honest." 

That is a very valuable admission. 

'One thinks it a dangerous experiment to hold a constitutional con- 
vention; the other thinks that it is the only salvation for Mississippi. In 



Fiat Justitia. 293 

my judgment, Mississippi is to-day standing between Winchester rifles on 
the one hand and Federal interference on the other. 

************ 
'In ; 873 the Democratic party of the United States denounced Grant's 
administration for maintaining bayonets at the polls, and the agitation 
of this question created a revolution in politics throughout the^United 
States. 

*** ********* 

"This gave unquestioned proof that the American people were opposed 
to iiiiHtary interference. I regret to say — " 

he continues, this candid Democrat — 

"I regret to say that in Mississippi many of our elections, or so-called elec- 
tions, are dominated by mihtary interference to a greater extent than any 
ever perpetrated under General Grant's administration. 

"The election at Jackson on Monday last gives evidence to every con- 
servative Democrat in Mississippi that something must be done to prevent 
irresponsible men from exercising the controlling influence in our elections. 
And of such a system is to continue, Feder il interference could not be much 
worse. If the Republican party of the North have the courage of the men 
who invaded the South in 1861 and 1865, they will not much longer toler- 
ate it, and Federal interference, with all its horrors, will be again upon us. 
The main object to be attained by a constitutional convention is white 
supremacy by legal and constitutional methods, thereby superseding the 
shot-gun policy." 

Mr. President, it needs no further proof of the statement 
that there is evidence controlling and overwhelming, from 
quarters not friendly to the party that I represent, that there 
is a deliberate purpose on the part of the whites of the South 
to eliminate absolutely the colored vote as a controlling or 
resisting factor in their political problem and situation. The 
pretexts for this course are many, but they all rest upon the 
assumption of the inferiority of the colored race, and of the 
dangers to Anglo-Saxon civilization from what thev are 
pleased to call negro supremacy. 

But, Mr. President, I confess with humiliation that to 
this nullification of the Constitution, to this abrogation of the 



294 John James Ingalls. 

social compact, to this breach of plighted faith, this violation 
of the natural rights of man. the people of the North have 
apparently consented. The Electoral College, the Senate, 
the House of Representatives, the domestic and foreign polic\ 
of this Nation, the debt, the revenue, the currency, all have 
been affected, and injuriouslN affected, by corrupt and fabri 
cated majorities, without formal protest or organized resist- 
ance on the part of the North. Timon of Athens says: 

'"Tis not enough to help the feeV)le up, 
But to support him after." 

Until 1877 the unstable fabric erected by the architects 
of reconstruction was upheld bv the military authority of the 
United States, and when this was withdrawn, the incongruous 
edifice toppled headlong and vanished away like the baseless 
fabric of a vision, h disappeared in cruel and ferocious con- 
vulsions, which form one of the most shameful and shocking 
of all the bloody tragedies of history. The attempt to reor 
ganize society upon the basis of numbers failed. Education, 
wealth, political experience, land-Qwnership in tlie South, all 
conspired against the Constitution and the laws of the United 
States; and they emerged from that dreadful conflict in full 
possession of all the powers of the States, and no serious effort 
has been made to deprive them of their guilty acquisition. 
Casual and temporary efforts to pass force bills, civil rights 
bills, national election laws, have been made, but without 
avail. Practically— I say it with shame and remorse— prac- 
tically, the negroes have been abandoned to their fate. In the 
catalogue thev go for men, but the word of promise that was 
given them by the North has not been kept either to their ear 
or to their hope. 



Fiat Justitia. 295 

There are undoubtedly some thoughtful men in the South 
who perceive the gravity of the situation, who apprehend 
coming events, and would willingly relinquish the increment 
of representation in the Electoral College, in the Senate, and 
in the House of Representatives, gained by emancipation and 
enfranchisement, if the States could be permitted to impose 
the race condition upon suffrage. But this is impossible. It 
would shock the conscience of mankind. "The gods them- 
selves cannot recall their gifts." Educational and property 
qualifications are competent and constitutional, but this would 
only retard and defer the crisis that is inevitable. It may be 
postponed for a generation, or it may be precipitated at the 
next Presidential election; but I warn those who are perpe- 
trating these wrongs upon the suffrage that the North, the 
West, and the Northwest will not consent to have their indus- 
tries, their institutions, their wealth, their manufactures, and 
their civilization changed, modified, or destroyed by an Exec- 
utive and by Congressional majorities resting upon deliberate 
and habitual suppression of the colored vote, or any other vote, 
by force or by fraud. The instinct of self-preservation will 
forbid it. 

The date when patience will cease cannot be predicted, 
but though the precise time cannot be foretold, it will come; 
and that it will come in peace or in blood is the inexorable 
decree of destiny. The same passions that resented colonial 
dependence, that substituted the Union for the confederation, 
that have overthrown State sovereignty, slavery, and every 
other obstacle in the path of liberty, justice, and nationality, 
may slumber, but they are not dead. They have acquired 
greater strength with their exercise at every stage of our 
growth and progress. The compromises of politicians seeking 



29t) John James Ingalls. 

for place and power, the shifts of traders wanting gain, the 
cowardice of the timid, who desire peace at the sacrifice of 
honor, will not prevail. Sooner or later they will shrivel and 
be consumed away in some sudden blaze like that which flashed 
and flamed from the Atlantic to the Pacific when John Brown 
at Harper's Ferry fired the gun whose reverberations died 
away at Appomattox. [Applause.] 

Mr. President, among the preliminary incidents that will 
hasten this issue, if the present state of aff"airs continues, armed 
collisions between the races in the South are inevitable. They 
can be averted only by justice and by forbearance; but these 
qualities are not likely from present indications to be exhibited. 
There is nothing to indicate that in State, numicipal, or local 
aftairs the rights of majorities, if they happen to be black, will 
be recognized; and here the Nation has no power to interfere. 

Ultimately the colored race will everywhere be strono- 
enough to resist violence, and they will be intelligent enough 
to resent fraud. Educated to the consciousness of power, 
they will insist upon its exercise. They will neither submit to 
injustice nor consent to the denial of their political rights. 
With knowledge, wealth, and the irresistible stimulus and con- 
tagion of liberty will come self-control and leadership that will 
render the suppression of their suffrage impossible, except bv 
the national will or bv revolution. 

The South, Mr. President, is standing upon a volcano. 
The South is sitting on a safety-valve. Thev are breeding 
innumerable John Browns and Xat. Turners. Already mut- 
terings of discontent by hostile organizations are heard. The 
use of the torch and the dagger is advised. 1 deplore it. but 
as God is my judge, I say that no other people on the face of 
this earth have ever submitted to the wrongs, the iniustice, 



Fiat Justitia. 297 

which have been for twenty-five years heaped upon the colored 
men of the South without revolution and blood. [Applause 
in the galleries.] 

The Vice-President: The Chair takes this occasion to 
remind the occupants of the galleries that they are here by the 
courtesy of the Senate, and any manifestations of approbation 
or disapprobation are violations of the rules of the Senate. 
Order must be preserved. 

Mr. Ingalls: And yet, Mr. President, in the face of this 
issue, the Senator from South Carolina who sits farthest from 
me [Mr. Hampton] deliberately advocates the policv of exter- 
mination of the blacks. I ask the Chief Clerk to read the 
extract which I send to the desk. 

The Chief Clerk read as follows : 

"Senator Hampton's position, like that of a good many other people, 
is that no country was ever made or can be made for the occupation of two 
races distinct from each other in color and habits and tradition. Apply- 
ing this rule to the Southern States, he finds that the condition inexorably 
indicates one of three results. 

"One of the two races must migrate, one of the two must be extermin- 
ated, or the two must amalgamate. Increase of population, wealth, and 
education will hasten one of these results in proportion as we are success- 
ful. The richer and more highly educated the negro becomes, the higher 
his ambition will be, and the more bitterly will he resent and resist being 
held in a menial or inferior position. No enmity is involved in this con- 
sideration of plain facts. His warmest friends must come to understand 
that he cannot have a fair opportunity to develop what capacity he may 
have while in competition with another race, holding itself superior to him, 
in possession of most of the property, in control of the resources, and with 
a tremendous lead in intelligence and culture to enforce its claim. There 
is abundant soil in Central and South America and Mexico, and the United 
States Government can command money enough to buy a continent if it 
likes. The homesteads now offered other settlers on our public lands, 
together with free transportation and other help, would carry negroes from 
the South in swarms. They could organize their own States and come 
into the Union just as other people do, having their representatives in 
Congress and the Electoral College. There would be no danger that all of 



298 John James Ingalls. 

them would leave the South, but enough would leave to relieve the situa- 
ttion of its pressures and dangers." 

Mr. Ingalls: That the process of extermination, or the 
solution of extermination, has already been inaugurated and 
is going on, I ask the Chief Clerk to read an extract from a 
newspaper printed in Brandon, Mississippi, of the issue of last 

week. 

The Chief Clerk read as follows: 

"Negro immigration threatens to overwhelm Mississippi, and if wc- 
didn't have such an unbounded faith in our abihty to cope with them, it 
would make us feel serious. The Avalandu: and other great dailies are pre- 
dicting great disasters for the old Magnolia State, but we'll wager our old 
clothes that Mississippi will get there every time. There were one hun- 
dred and fifty-five negroes-lynched in this State last year This is signifi- 
cant, and should have a restraining influence over the coons." 

Mr. Ingalls: Unc hundred and fifty-five negroes lynched, 
their lives taken without authority of law, in Mississippi last 

year ! 

Mr. President, the black man is not a coward. The black 
man came here, as I said before, as a prisoner of war, captured 
in battle. Two hundred and fifty thousand of them enlisted 
in the military service of the United States to preserve the 
integrity of the Constitution that doomed them to degrada- 
tion and to defend the flag that was the symbol and the 
emblem of their dishonor. It is said that the Athenians 
erected a statue to .^sop, who was born a slave ; or, as Phae- 
drus phrases it : 

"^sopi ingenio statuam posuere Attici, 
Servumque coUocarunt aetema in basi." 
"They placed the slave upon an eternal pedestal." 

Sir, for what the enfranchised slaves did for the cause 01 
constitutional liberty in this country the American people 



Fiat Justitia. 299 

should imitate the Athenians and place the slave upon an eter- 
nal pedestal. Their conduct has been beyond all praise. 
They have been patient, they have been docile, they have been 
loyal to their masters and to the country, and to those with 
whom the}^ are associated ; but, as I said before, no other peo- 
ple ever endured patiently such injustice and wrong. Des- 
potism makes nihilists; tyranny makes socialists and com- 
munists; injustice is the great manufacturer of dynamite. 
The thief robs himself; the adulterer pollutes himself; the 
murderer inflicts a deeper wound upon himself than that which 
slays his victim. The South in imposing chains upon the Afri- 
cans placed heavier manacles upon themselves than those 
which bound the hapless slave; and those who are now denying 
to American citizens the prerogatives of freedom should remem- 
ber that behind them, silent and tardy it may be, but inexor- 
able and relentless, stalks with uplifted blade the menacing 
specter of vengeance and of retribution. 

Sir, the South is in greater danger than the enfranchised 
slave if there is to be the policy of extermination; but if rav 
voice can reach that proscribed and unfortunate class, I appeal 
to them to continue as they have begun, to endure to the end. 
and thus to commend themselves to the favorable judgment of 
mankind, and to rely for their safety upon the ultimate appeal 
to the conscience of the human race. 

This is one of the great dangers, Mr. President. Ordina- 
rih- it might be assumed that if the supremacy of the white 
race in the South was threatened by armed negro majorities, 
fighting for the rights of which they are deprived, the coalition 
of the Anglo-Saxon race on this continent would be instanta- 
neous. But unfortunately, sir, the reconciliation of the sec- 
tions is not cordial nor complete. There is no affection between 



300 John James Ingalls. 

the conquerors and Ihc conquered. The South has not for- 
given the North for its victory, for its prosperity, for its superi- 
ority. If it can control the Government and its patronage 
and hold the purse and the sword, it is patriotic. It is opposed 
to pensions, to protection, to national authority, because these 
are the policies of those who thwarted the effort to destroy the 
Union. It re-enforces the cowardly and degraded elements 
in the North that sympathized with their treason. 

The South, sir, has not accepted the amendments of the 
Constitution in good faith. It habitually violates the treaty 
made with the North, openly proclaims a purpose to disregard 
the pledge under which they escaped confiscation and out- 
lawry. They have their own heroes, their own anniversaries. 
They celebrate their own victories. They rear their monu- 
ments to civil and military leaders whose claim to glory is that 
they fell for slavery and anarchy. They exalt their leaders 
above those of the Union cause, and continually cry that they 
were right and will ultimately prevail. 

Mr. President, until these conditions are permanently 
changed, however formidable and perilous may be the exigen- 
cies confronting the vSouth from the numerical strength of the 
black race, assistance and cooperation cannot be anticipated 
from the North; they must tread "the wine-press alone," and 
they will eventually discover the truth of the instruction of 
historv, that nothing is so unprofitable as injustice, and that 
God is an unrelenting creditor. 

Mr. President. I can appreciate and understand the rever- 
ence and the honor in which the memory of Jeflferson Davis is 
held by the vSouthern people. I honor them for their con- 
stancv. Ideas are immortal ; their vitality is inextinguishable ; 
thev can never be annihilated; force cannot destroy them. 



Fiat Justitia. 301 

No man is ever convinced by being overpowered. Ideas may 
be subordinated, their expression maybe suppressed, but thev 
never die. War does not change the opinions either of the 
victors or of the conquered. It proves nothing except which 
of the combatants had the most endurance, the deepest purse, 
and the sharpest sword. Therefore, when Southern Legisla- 
tures, and conventions, and a Democratic Congress declare 
by resolution that the issues of slavery, secession, and State 
soN'creignty were settled by the war, but omit to repudiate 
the doctrines as unconstitutional and untenable, they leave 
the impression of disingenuousness and insincerity. Jefferson 
Davis possessed none of the "thrift that follows fawning." 
He never "crooked the pregnant hinges of his knee." Obdu- 
rate, implacable, and relentless to the last, he remained the 
immovable type, exponent, and representative of those ideas 
for which he staked all and lost all. 

It is, sir, a striking illustration of the irony of fate that, 
while Lincoln in the hour of victory fell by the bullet of an 
assassin, the victim of the subsiding passions of the war, his 
great antagonist survived for a quarter of a century and died 
peacefullv in honor and prosperity. 

vSir, the Northern press, with singular unanimity, referred 
to him in terms of respect and honor, and not with malevo- 
lence or hatred. He had steadfastly refused the amnesty 
which would readilv have been granted, and declined to become 
a citizen of the United States. He had devoted his time and 
strength to the explanation and justification of the purposes 
of the South in its effort to destroy the Union. In response to 
the announcement of his death, forwarded by the Mayor of 
New Orleans, the Secretary of War explained in mild and 
deferential terms the reason why it was thought best to take 



302 John- James Ingalls. 

no public notice of his decease and to withhold the usual dem- 
onstrations for one who had occupied a place in the cabinet of 
a President of the United States. 

There is in northern Mississippi a town by the name of 
Aberdeen. It is a seat of justice, I believe alsc^ of learning, 
and a place of considerable consequence. On the occasion of 
the death of Jeflferson Davis, Aberdeen was shrouded in mourn- 
ing; the United States Court-house was draped; the national 
flag, that the Secretary of War had declined to lower, was at 
half-mast on the Government building; the Tenebrae were 
chanted in the churches, and the entire community gave indi- 
cations, as they had a right to do, of the profoundest solemnity 
and woe. As an additional method of expressing their grief, 
thev constructed an elligy, which was suspended upon a cable 
across the principal street of the town, and labeled it "Red. 
Proctor, the Traitor!" — "Red," I suppose, being the con- 
traction for Redfield, which is, I believe, the first name of the 
Secretary' of War— and there it swung as an indication of the 
affliction of the citizens of Aberdeen at the death of Jefferson 
Davis. [Laughter.] 

Into the town of Aberdeen a few days before had come a 
journevman tinner by the name of Fanz. He was a citizen of 
Indiana. His politics were unknown. He was white. He 
was twenty-five years of age, of diminutive stature, of inoffen- 
sive demeanor, and of conciliatory address. In the process of 
his labor as a tinner, to cover the roof of the unfinished build- 
ing, to one of the rafters of which was attached the end of the 
cable that supported the effigy of "Red. Proctor, the Trai- 
tor," he was compelled to move the rope, in order to give him 
space to continue his work. 



Fiat Justitia. 303 

Proving too heavy for him, it slipped from his hands and 
fell into the street. He protested that he had no intention of 
giving offense to the citizens of Aberdeen. As he descended 
to go to his dinner he was intercepted by a gentlemanlv citizen 
of Aberdeen by the name of McDonald, who had in his hand 
one of the largest-sized whalebone coach-whips, and, confront- 
ing him, told him that for the offense he had committed he had 
"to take a whipping or something worse." Fanz endeavored 
to escape. He was unarmed. He was not a pugilist, although 
pugilists have been in Mississippi. [Laughter.] McDonald, 
being accompanied by his friends, prevented the escape of 
Fanz, and proceeded to inflict upon him a castigation, which, 
one observer said, extended to at least two hundred lashes. 
The whip was almost entirely destroyed. Fanz's face was cut 
and bleeding. His sight was nearly destroyed. He was mu- 
tilated and crippled, and fleeing to his boarding-house after 
the castigation had been completed, he was waited upon that 
evening by a committee of the citizens of Aberdeen, who pur- 
chased a ticket, placed him upon the train, and sent him away, 
and he has since been heard of no more. 

It is just to say that many of the citizens of Aberdeen said 
it was a great outrage. He was punished — McDonald was. 
He was arrested and taken before the police court and fined 
$30; and thereupon the citizens, who had walked under the 
effigy and who beheld the castigation without protest, started 
a subscription paper and raised $60 to cover the fine, the 
expense of the effigy, and the whip with which the castigation 
was inflicted. 

Mr. President, if an outrage like that had been inflicted 
upon an American citizen in England, in France, in vSpain, 
anywhere upon the face of this earth, and there had not been 



304 John James Ingalls. 

instantaneous disavowal and reparation, a million men would 
have sprung to arms to avenge the wrong. 

"The armaments that thunder-strike the walls of rock-built cities, 
Bidding nations quake and monarchs tremble in their capitals," 

would have gone swiftly forming in the ranks of war. He was 
a citizen of Indiana, the outrage was inflicted in Mississippi, 
and the perpetrators go unwhipped of justice. 

I said, Mr. President, that I was not in favor of the Afri- 
canization of this continent or any part of it. Bui if tlie meth- 
ods in the Chalmers campaign, in the Jackson campaign, and 
the proceedings at Aberdeen are illustrations of tlie temper, 
spirit, and purposes of the people of the State of Mississippi 
towards the Government of the United States and its citizens, 
I would a thousand-fold prefer that every rood of that State 
should be occupied by an African rather than by those who at 
present inhabit it. 

I refer once more, Mr. President, and in conclusion, to the 
utterances of the dead orator who, inquiring about the solu- 
tions of this great problem, said : 

"There can be but one answer. It is the very problem we are now to 
consider. The key that opens that problem will unlock to the world the 
fairest half of this Republic, and free the halted feet of thousands whose 
eyes are already kindling with its beauty. Better than this, it will open 
the hearts of brothers for thirty years estranged, and clasp in lasting com- 
radeship a million hands now withheld in doubt Mc)thing, sir, but this 
problem, and the suspicions it breeds, hinders a clear understanding and a 
perfect union." 

What are these "suspicions bred by the race problem" 
which hinder a clear understanding and perfect imion, referred 
to by Grady in his Boston speech? I will tell you, sir, what 
thev are, as I understand it. One suspicion is that this cry 



Fiat Justitia. 305 

of race antagonism applies only to the negro when he is free. 
Grady says: 

"The love we feel for that race you cannot measure nor comprehend 
As I attest it here, the spirit of my old black mammy, from her home up 
there, looks down on me to bless, and through the tumult of this night steals 
the sweet music of her croonings. as thirty years ago she held me in her 
black arms and led me smihng into sleep." 

vSuch is the concurrent testimony of all who have spoken 
upon the subject, that this cry of race antagonism and race 
repugnance did not apply to the black race when they were 
slaves, and there is a suspicion that if the blacks had remained 
slaves, there would have been no proposition either for separa- 
tion, colonization, or extermination. 

There is a suspicion further than this, INIr. President, and 
that is that race antagonism and race repugnance apply only 
to the colored man in the South when he desires to vote a 
Republican ticket. If they were all Democrats, the race ques- 
tion would disappear. 

There is a further stispicion, Mr. President, that the ques- 
tion whether these two races can subsist on terms of political 
equalitv under our system of government has never been fairly 
tried. If the South desire to be rid of the negro, they can 
xeadilv accomplish that result by refusing to employ him; and 
vet it is admitted by those who are competent to know that 
thev paid him in wages this last year not less than one himdred 
million dollars, and that he contributed, and indispensably 
contributed, to the production of crops that were worth one 
thousand million dollars more, and that besides that, in the 
State of Georgia alone, the black race has accumulated prop- 
erty, real estate, that is worth not less than twentv million 
dollars. 



3o6 John James Ingalls. 

Sir, the black race is capable of civilization. Xotwith- 
standing the obstacles and discouragements, llie failures and 
disappointments, justice requires the admission that in the 
dark and tragic inter\^al of its transition period it has made 
marked and substantial progress, greater, far greater, than 
could have been reasonabh' expected. If the degenerate 
proclivities engendered by centuries of oppression and ignor- 
ance have not been extirpated, they have at least been sur- 
prisinglv modified: and while there is ni)thing in his origin 
and in his history to justify the expectation that the African 
can ever successfully compete with the Anglo-Saxon in gov- 
ernment, in art. in conquest, or practical affairs, neither is 
there anything to indicate that he is not susceptible of high 
civilization. 

Habituated to subordination for centuries, self-reliance, 
pride of race, authority, and the respect of nations can only 
come, if at all. after the labors, the struggles, and the disci- 
pline of centuries. It would be obviously unjust to measure 
the advance of the colored race by comparison with our own. 
Their conditions should be contrasted with that of their con- 
temporaries of the same ancestry in the tropical jungles of 
Africa, where they still subsist in indescribable degradation 
and inexhaustible fecundity. Measured by this standard, 
they have displayed an extraordinary aptitude for improve- 
ment. Under the harsh and repressive limitations of slavery 
they ceased to be barbarians. In freedom they have adopted 
with alacrity the ideas of home, the family, obedience to law, 
and the institutions of government. Bloody and superstitious 
fetichism and idolatry have been succeeded by faith in immor- 
tality and belief in God, the sublimest conceptions that can 
be entertained by the soul of man. Their conduct has been 



Fiat Justitia. 307 

characterized by eagerness for education, by a desire for the 
accumulation of property, and by patient fortitude in adver- 
sity. They are ignorant, and they hunger for knowledge. 
They are wretched, and they thirst for happiness. 

Since 1862 there has been given for the education of the 
enfranchised slaves, through the American Missionary Soci- 
ety, Sio,ooo,ooo; through the Methodist Society, $2,250,000; 
through the Baptist Society, 82,000,000; through the Presby- 
terian Societv, Si, 600, 000; and not less than Sr, 000, 000 from 
other sources; in all about Si7,ooo,ood from the North. The 
Catholics also have interested themselves in the ])roblem. 
Bishop Vaughn, of Salford, in Lancastershire, England, has 
formed an organization especially directed toward the improve- 
ment of the colored people of the South, and at the Plenary 
Council of the Catholic Church, held at Baltimore three years 
ago, it was decided to establish a seminary, where the bishop 
has now forty clergymen educating to assist in evangelizing 
and training them in all the functions and duties of good 
citizenship. 

From the platform adopted at the congress of the Church 
held in Baltimore a few weeks since, the following paragraphs 
will show that the Catholic laity are in accord with the clergy 
and at work in endeavoring to solve the race problem : 

"We pledge ourselves to cooperate with the clergy in discussing and in 
solving those great economic and social questions which affect the inter- 
ests and well-being of the Church, the country, and society at large. 

"That the amehoration and promotion of the i)hysical and 'moral cult- 
ure of the negro race is a subject of the utmost concern, and we pledge our- 
selves to assist our clergy in all ways tending to effect any improvement 
in their condition." 

Mr. President, four solutions of the race problem are pro- 
posed: first, amalgamation; second, extermination; third, sep- 



3o8 John James Ingalls. 

aration; fourth, disfranchisement. But, sir, there is a fifth, 
the universal solvent of all human difficulties, that never has 
been proposed and never has been tried, and that is the 
solution of justice — justice, for which everv place should be a 
temple and all seasons summer. 

I appeal to the South to try the experiment of justice. 
Stack your guns, open your ballot-boxes, register your voters, 
black and white ; and if, after the experiment has been fairly 
and honestly tried, it appears that the African race is incapable 
of civilization, if it appears that the complexion burned upon 
him by a tropic sun is incompatible with freedom. I pledge 
myself to consult with xou about some measure of sohing the 
race problem; but until then nothing can be done. 

The citizenship of tin- negro must be absolutely recognized, 
liis right to vote must be admitted, and the ballots that he 
casts must be honestly counted. These are the essential pre- 
liminaries, the indispensable conditions precedent to any con- 
sideration of the ulterior and fundamental questions of race 
supremacy or of race equality in the United States, North or 
South. Those who freed the slaves ask nothing more; they 
will be content with nothing less. The experiment must be 
fairly tried. This is the starting-point and this the goal. The 
longer it is deferred the greater will be the exasperation and 
the more doubtful will be the final result. [Applause in the 
galleries. J 



''THK IMAGE AND SUPERSCRIPTION OF 

CESAR." 



(Speech in the Senate of the United States, Wednesday, January 14, iSqi.) 

Mr. President: Two portentous perils threaten the safety, 
if they do not endanger the existence, of the Republic. 

The first of these is ignorant, debased, degraded, spurious, 
and sophisticated suffrage ; suffrage contaminated by the fec- 
ulent sewage of decaying nations; suffrage intimidated and 
suppressed in the South; suffrage impure and corrupt, apa- 
thetic, and indifferent in the great cities of the North — so that it 
is doubtful whether there has been for half a century a Presi- 
dential election in this country that expressed the deliberate 
and intelligent judgment of the whole body of the American 
people. 

In a newspaper inter\iew a few months ago, in which 1 
commented upon these conditions and alluded to the efforts 
of the bacilli doctors of politics, the bacteriologists of our sys- 
tem, who endeavor to cure the ills under which we suffer by 
their hypodermic injections of the lymph of independent non- 
partisanship and the Brown-Sequard elixir of civil service 
reform, I said that " the purification of politics" by such meth- 
ods as this was an "iridescent dream." Remembering the 
cipher dispatches of 1877 and the attempted purchase of the 
electoral votes of many Southern States in that campaign, 
the forgery of the Morey letter in 1881, by which Garfield lost 



3IO John Jamus Ingaij.s. 

the voles of three States ir. the North, and the characteriza- 
tion and portraiture of Blaine and Cleveland and Harrison b> 
their political adversaries. 1 added that "the Golden Rule and 
the Decalogue had no place in American political campaigns." 

It seems supernnf)us to explain. Mr. President, thai in 
those utterances I was not inculcating a doctrine, but describ- 
ing a condition. Mv statement was a statement of facts as I 
understand them, and not tlK- announcement of an article of 
faith. But manv reverend and eminent dixinc-s, many dis- 
interested editors, many ingenuous orators. i)ervert<.-d those 
utterances into the personal advocacy of impurity in politics. 

I do not complain, Mr. President. It was. as the world 
goes, legitimate political warfare : l)ut it was an illustration 
of the truth that there ought to be iiurification in our politics, 
and that the Golden Rule und the Decalogue ought to have a 
place in political campaigns. "Do unto others as ye would 
that others should do unto you" is the supreme injunction, 
obligatorv upon all. " If thine enemy smite thee upon one 
cheek, turn to him the other," is a sublime and lofty pre- 
cept. But I take this occasion to observe that until it is more 
generallv regarded than it has been or appears likely to be in 
the immediate future, if m\- political enemy smites me upon 
one cheek, instead of turning to him the other, I shall smite 
him under the butt end of his left ear if 1 can. [Laughter.] 
If this be political innnorality, I am to be included among the 
unregenerated. 

The election bill that was under consideration a few days 
ago was intended to deal with one part of the great evil to 
w^hich I have alluded, but it was an imperfect, a partial, and 
an incomplete remedy. Violence is bad ; but fraud is no bet- 
ter; and it is more dangerous because it is more insidious. 



"The Image axd Superscription of C^sar." 311 

Burke said in one of those immortal orations that emptied the 
House of Commons, but which will be read with admiration so 
long as the English tongue shall endure, that when the laws of 
Great Britain were not strong enough to protect the humblest 
Hindoo upon the sliores of the Ganges, the nobleman was not 
safe in his castle upon the banks of the Thames. Sir, that 
lofty sentence is pregnant with admonition for us. There can 
be no repose, there can be no stable and permanent peace, 
in this country and under this Government, until it is just as 
safe for the black Republican to vote in Mississippi as it is 
for the white Democrat to vote in Kansas. 

The other evil, Mr. 'President — the second to which I ad- 
verted as threatening the safety, if it does not endanger the 
existence, of the Republic — is the tyranny of combined, concen- 
trated, centralized, and incorporated capital. And the peo- 
ple are considering this problem now. The conscience of the 
Nation is shocked at the injustice of modern society. The 
moral sentiment of mankind has been aroused at the unequal 
distribution of wealth, at the unequal diffusion of the burdens, 
the benefits, and the privileges of society. 

At the beginning of our second century the American peo- 
ple have become profoundly conscious that the ballot is not 
the panacea for all the evils that afflict humanity; that it has 
not abolished poverty nor prevented injustice. They have 
discovered that political equality does not result in social 
fraternity; that under a democracy the concentration of 
greater political power in fewer hands, the accumulation and 
aggregation of greater amounts of wealth in individuals, is 
more possible than under a monarchy, and that there is a tyr- 
annv which is more fatal than the tyranny of kings. 



312 John James Ingalls. 

George Washington, the first President of the Republic, at 
the close of his life in 1799 had the largest private fortune in 
the United States of America. Much of this came bv inherit- 
ance, but the Father of His Countr\-. in addition to his other 
virtues, shining and illustrious, was a very prudent, sagacious, 
thrifty, and forehanded man. He knew a good thing when he 
saw it a great way off. He had a keen eye for the main chance. 
As a surveyor in his youth. Ik- obtained knowledge that enabled 
him to make exceedingly \aluable locations upon the public 
domain. The establishment of the national capital in the 
inmiediate vicinity of his patrimonial possessions did not dim- 
inish their value. He was a just debtor, but he was an exact 
if not an exacting creditor. And so it came to pass that when 
he died, he was, to use tlie expressive phraseology of the daw 
the richest man in the country. 

At this time, ninety years afterward, it is not without inter 
est to know that the entire aggregate and sum of liis earthlv 
possessions, his estate, real, personal, and mixed. Mount \'er- 
non and his lands along the Kanawha and the Ohio, slaves, 
securities, all of his belongings, reached the sum total of between 
$800,000 and $900,000. This was less than a century ago, 
and it is within bounds to say that at this time there are many 
scores of men, of estates, and of corporations in this country 
whose annual income exceeded, and there has been one man 
whose monthly revenue since that period exceeded, the entire 
accumulations of the wealthiest citizen of the United States 
at the end of the last century. 

At that period the social condition of the United States 
was one of practical equality. The statistics of the census 
of 1800 are incomplete and partial, but the population of 
the Union was about 5,300,000, and the estimated wealth of 



"The Image and Superscription of C--esar." 313 

the country was between $3,000,000,000 and $4,000,000,000. 
There was not a milHonaire and there was not a tramp nor a 
pauper, so far as we know, in the country, except those who had 
been made so by infirmity, or disease, or inevitable calamity. 
A multitude of small farmers contentedly tilled the soil. 
Upon the coast a race of fishermen and sailors, owning the 
craft that they sailed, wrested their subsistence from the 
stormy sea. Labor was the rule and luxury the exception. 
The great mass of the people lived upon the products of the 
farms that they cultivated. They spun and wove and man- 
ufactured their clothing from flax and from wool. Com- 
merce and handicrafts afforded honorable competence. The 
prayer of Agur was apparently realized. There was nei- 
ther poverty nor riches. Wealth was uniformly diffused, and 
none was condemned to hopeless penury and dependence. 
I^ess than 4 per cent of the entire population lived in towns, 
and there were but four cities whose population exceeded 
10,000 persons. Westward to the Pacific lay the fertile sol- 
itudes of an unexplored continent, its resources undeveloped 
and unsuspected. The dreams of Utopia seemed about to be 
fulfilled, the wide, the universal diffusion of civil, political, 
and personal rights among the great body of the people, accom- 
panied by efficient and vigorous guaranties for the safetv of 
life, the protection of property, and the preservation of libertv. 
Since that time, Mr. President, the growth in wealth and 
numbers in this country has had no precedent in the building 
of nations. The genius of the people, stimulated to prodigious 
activity by freedom, by individualism, by universal education, 
has subjugated the desert and abolished the frontier. The 
laboring capacity of every inhabitant of this planet has been 
duplicated by machinery. In Massachusetts alone we are 



314 John James Ingalus. 

told that its engines are equivalent to the labor of one hundred 
million men. We now perform one-third of the world's min- 
ing, one-quarter of its manufacturing, (me-fifth of its farming, 
and we possess one-sixth part of its entire accunuilated wealth. 

The Anglo-Saxon. Mr. President, is not bv nature or in 
stinct an anarchist, a socialist, a nihilist, or a communist, lie 
does not desire the repudiation of debts, public or private, 
and he does not faxor the forcible redistribution of j^roperty. 
He came to this continent, as he has gone evervwhere else on 
the face of the earth, with a ])urpose. The 40,000 English 
colonists who came to this country between 1620 and 1650 
formed the most significant, the most formidable migration 
that has e\er occurred upon this globe since time began. They 
brought with them social and political ideas, no\el in their 
application, of inconceivable energy and power — the home, 
the familw the .State, indi\idualism, the right of personal 
effort, freedom of conscience, an indomitable love of liberty 
and justice, a genius for self-government, an unrivaled capac- 
ity for conquest. l)ut preferring charters to the sword — and 
they have been inexorable and relentless in the accomplish- 
ment of their designs. Thev were fatigued with caste and 
privilege and prerogative. They were tired of monarchs, and 
so, upon the bleak and inhospitable shores of New England, 
they decreed the sovereigntv of the people, and there they 
builded "a church without a bishop and a state without a 
king." 

The result of that experiment, Mr. President, has been 
ostensibly successful. Under the operation of those great 
forces, after two hundred and seventy years, this country 
exhibits a peaceful triumph over manv subdued nationalities, 
through a government automatic in its functions and sus- 



"The Image and Superscription of C^sar." 315 

tained by no power but the invisible majesty of law. With 
swift and constant communication by lines of steam transpor- 
tation bv land and lake and sea, with telegraphs extending 
their nervous reticulations from State to State, the remotest 
members of this gigantic Republic are animated by^a vitality 
as vigorous as that which throbs at its mighty heart, and it is 
through the quickened intelligence that has been communicated 
by those ideas that these conditions, which have been fatal to 
other nations, have become the pillars of our strength and the 
bulwarks of our safety. 

Mr. President, if time and space signified now what they 
did when independence was declared, the United States could 
not exist under one government. It would not be possible to 
secure unity of purpose or identity of interest between com- 
munities separated by such barriers and obstacles as Maine and 
California. But time and distance are relative terms, and, 
under the operations of these forces, this continent has dwin- 
dled to a span. It is not as far from Boston to San Francisco 
to-dav as it was from Boston to Baltimore in 1791 ; and as the 
world has shrunk life has expanded. For all the purposes for 
which existence is valuable in this world— for comfort, for 
convenience, for opportunity, for intelligence, for power of 
locomotion, and superiority to the accidents and the fatal- 
ities of Nature— the fewest in years among us, Mr. President, 
has lived longer and has lived more worthily than Methuselah 
in all his stagnant centuries. 

When the Atlantic cable was completed, it was not merely 
that a wire, finer by comparison than the gossamer of morning, 
had sunk to its path along the peaks and the plateaus of 
the deep, but the earth instantaneously grew smaller by the 
breadth of the Atlantic. A new volume in the history of the 



t 

316 John James Ingalus. 

world was opened. The to-morrow of Europe flashed upon 
the yesterday of America. Time, up to the period when this 
experiment commenced on this continent, yielded its treasures 
grudgingly and with reluctance. The centuries crept from 
improvement to improvement with tardy, sluggish steps, as if 
Nature were unwilling to acknowledge the mastery of man. 
The great inventions of glass, of gunpowder, of jirinting, and the 
mariner's compass consumed a thousand years, but, as the great 
experiment upon this continent has proceeded, the ancient law 
of progress has been disregarded, and the mind is bewildered 
bv the stupendous results of its marv'elous achievements. 

The application of steam to locomotion on land and sea. the 
cotton-gin, electric illumination and telegraphy, the cylinder 
])rinting-press, the sewing-machine, the photographic art, tubu- 
lar and suspension bridges, the telephone, the spectroscope, and 
the mvriad forms of new applications of science to health and 
domestic comfort, to the arts of peace and war, have alone ren- 
dered democracy possible. The steam engine emancipated 
millions from the slavery of daily toil and left them at liberty 
to pursue a higher range of effort; labor has become more 
remunerative, and the flood of wealth has raised the poor to 
comfort and the middle classes to affluence. \\'ith prosperity 
have attended leisure, books, travel; the masses have been 
provided with schools, and the range of mental inquiry has 
become wider and more daring. The sewing-machine does 
the work of a hundred hands and gives rest and hope to weary 
lives. Farming, as my distinguished friend from Xew York 
[Mr. Evarts] once said, has become a "sedentary occupation." 
The reaper no longer swings his sickle in midsummer fields 
through the yellowing grain, followed by those who gather the 
wheat and the tares, but he rides in a vehicle, protected from 



■w 

"The Image and Superscription of C^sar." 317 

the meridian sun, accomplishing in comfort in a single hour 
the former labors of a day. 

By these and the other emancipating devices of society the 
laborer and the artisan acquire the means of studv and recre- 
ation. They provide their children with better opportunities 
than they possessed. Emerging from the obscure degradation 
to which they have been consigned by monarchies, they have 
assumed the leadership in politics and society. The governed 
have become the governors; the subjects have become the 
kings. They have formed vStates; they have invented polit- 
ical systems ; they have made laws ; they have established lit- 
eratures; and it is not true, Mr. President, in one sense, that 
during this extraordinary period the rich have grown richer 
and the poor have grown poorer. There has never been a time 
since the angel stood with the flaming sword before the gates 
of Eden when the dollar of invested capital paid as low a return 
in interest as it does to-day ; nor has there been an hour when 
the dollar that is earned by the laboring man would buy so 
much of everything that is essential for the welfare of himself 
and his family as it will to-day. 

Mr. President, monopolies and corporations, however strong 
they may be, cannot permanently enslave such a people. 
They have given too many convincing proofs of their capacity 
for self-government. They have made too many incredible 
sacrifices for this great system which has been builded and 
established here to allow it to be overthrown. They will 
submit to no dictation. 

We have become, Mr. President, the wealthiest nation upon 
the face of this earth, and the greater part of these enormous 
accumulations has been piled up during the past fifty years. 
From i860 to 1880, notwithstanding the losses incurred by 



3i8 John James Ingalls. 

the most destructive war of modern times, the emancipation 
of four billions of slave property, the expenses of feeding the 
best fed, of clothing the best clothed, and of sheltering the best 
sheltered people in the world, notwithstanding all the losses 
by fire and flood during that period of twentv vears. the wealth 
of the country increased at the rate of $250,000 for every 
hour. Every time that the clock ticked above the portal of 
this chamber the aggregated, accumulated, permanent wealth 
of this country increased more than S70. 

Sir, it rivals, it exceeds the fictions of the Arabian Nights. 
There is nothing in the story of the lamp of Aladdin that 
surpasses it. It is without parallel or precedent; and the na- 
tional ledger now shows a balance to our credit, after all that 
has been wasted and squandered and expended and lost and 
thrown away, of between sixty and seventy thousand million 
dollars. I believe myself that, upon a fair cash market valua- 
tion, the aggregate wealth of this countrv to-day is not less 
than one hundred thousand million dollars. This is cnouoh. 
.Mr. President, to make every man and every woman and 
every child beneath the Hag comfortable, to keep the wolf 
away from the door. It is enough to give to everv familv a 
competence, and yet we are told that there are thousands of 
people who never have enough to eat in any one day in the 
year. We are told by the statisticians of the Department of 
Labor of the United States that, notwithstanding this stu- 
pendous aggregation, there are a million American citizens, 
able-bodied and willing to work, who tramp the streets of our 
cities and the country highways and byways in search of labor 
with which to buy their daily bread, in vain. 

Mr. President, is it any wonder that this condition of things 
can exist without exciting profound apprehension ? I heard — 



"The Image and Superscriptiox of C^sar." 319 

or saw, rather, for I did not hear it — I saw in the morning 
papers that, in his speech yesterday, the Senator from Ohio 
[Mr. Sherman] devoted a considerable part of his remarks to 
the defense of milHonaires; that he declared they were the 
froth upon the beer of our political system. 

Mr. Sherman: I said, "speculators." 

Mr. IxGALLS: Speculators. They are very nearly the 
same, for the millionaires of this country, Mr. President, are 
not the producers and the laborers. They are arrayed like 
Solomon in all his glory, but "they toil not, neither do they 
spin" — ves, they do spin. This class, Mr. President, I am glad 
to sav, is not confined to this country alone. These gigantic 
accumulations have not been the result of industry and econ- 
omv. There would be no protest against them if they were. 
There is an anecdote floating around the papers, speaking about 
beer, that some gentleman said to the keeper of a saloon that 
he would give him a recipe for selling more beer, and when he 
inquired what it was, he said: "vSell less froth." [Laughter.] 
If the millionaires and speculators of this country are the froth 
upon the beer of our system, the time has come when we should 
sell more beer by selling less froth. [Laughter.] 

The people are beginning to inquire whether, "under a 
government of the people, and by the people, and for the peo- 
ple," under a system in which the bounty of Nature is supple- 
mented bv the labor of all, any citizen can show a moral, yes, 
or a legal title to §200,000,000. Some have the temerity to ask 
whether or not anv man can show a clear title to $100,000,000. 
There have been men rash enough to doubt whether, under a 
system so constituted and established, by speculation or other- 
wise, any citizen can show a fair title to Si 0,000,000, when the 
distribution of wealth per capita would be less than Si, 000. 



2,20 JoHX James Ingalls. 

If I were put upon my voir dire, I should hesitate before admit- 
ting that, in the sense of giving just compensation and equiva- 
lent, any man in this country or any other country ever abso- 
hitcly earned a million dollars. I do not believe he ever did. 

What is the condition to-day, Mr. President, by the sta- 
tistics? I said, at the beginning of this century there was a 
condition of practical social equality; wealth was uniformly 
ditTused among the great mass of the people. I repeat that 
the people are not anarchists; they are not socialists; they are 
not communists ; but they have suddenly waked to the concep- 
tion of the fact that the l)ulk of the property of the country is 
passing into the hands of what the Senator from Ohio by an 
euphemism calls the "speculators" of the world, not of America 
alone. Thev infest the financial and social systems of every 
counlry upon the face of the earth. They are the men of no 
politics, neither Democrat nor Republican. They are the men 
of all nationalities and of no nationality, with no politics but 
plunder, and with no principle but the spoliation of the human 
race. 

A table has been compiled for the purpose of showing how 
wealth in this country is distributed, and it is full of the most 
startling admonition. It has appeared in the magazines; it 
has been commented upon in this chamber; it has been the 
theme of editorial discussion. It appears from this compila- 
tion that there are in the United States two hundred persons 
who have an aggregate of more than $20,000,000 each : and 
there has been one man, the Midas of the century, at whose 
touch everything seemed to turn to gold, who had acquired 
within less than the lifetime of a single individual, out of the 
aggregate of the national wealth that was earned bv the labor 
of all applied to the common bounty of Nature, an aggregate 



"The Image and Superscription of C^sar." 321 

that exceeded the assessed valuation of four of the smallest 
States in this Union. 

Mr. Hoar: And more than the whole country had when 
the Constitution was formed. 

Mr. Ingalls: Yes, and, as the Senator from ]\Iassachu- 
setts well observes — and I thank him for the suggestion — 
much more, many times more than the entire wealth of the 
country when it was established and founded. Four hundred 
persons possess $10,000,000 each, 1,000 persons $5,000,000 
each, 2,000 persons $2,500,000 each, 6,000 persons $1,000,000 
each, and 15,000 persons $500,000 each, making a total of 
31,100 people who possess $36,250,000,000. 

Mr. President, it is the most appalling statement that ever 
fell upon mortal ears. It is, so far as the results of democracy 
as a social and political experiment are concerned, the most 
terrible commentary that ever was recorded in the book of 
Time; and Nero fiddles while Rome burns. It is thrown off 
with a laugh and a sneer as the "froth upon the beer" of our 
political and social system. As I said, the assessed valuation 
recorded in the great national ledger standing to our credit 
is about $65,000,000,000. 

Our population is sixty-two and one-half millions, and by 
some means, by some device, by some machination, by some 
incantation, honest or otherwise, by some process that cannot 
be defined, less than a two-thousandth part of our population 
have obtained possession, and have kept out of the peniten- 
tiary in spite of the means they have adopted to acquire it, of 
more than one-half of the entire accumulated wealth of the 
country. That is not the worst, Mr. President. It has been 
largely acquired by men who have contributed little to the 
material welfare of the country and by processes that I do not 



32 2 John James Ingalls. 

care in appropriate terms to describe, by the wrecking of the 
fortunes of innocent men, women, and children, by jugglery, 
by bookkeeping, bv financiering, by what the Senator from 
Ohio calls "speculation," and this process is going on with 
frightful and constantly accelerating rapidity. 

The entire industry of this country is passing under the 
control of organized and confederated capital. More than 
fifty of the necessaries of life to-day, without which the cabin 
of the farmer and the miner cannot be lighted, or his children 
fed or clothed, have passed absolutely under the control of 
syndicates .and trusts and corporations composed of specu- 
lators, and, by means of these combinations and confedera- 
tions, competition is destroyed ; small dealings are rendered 
impossible; competence can no longer be acquired, for it is 
superfluous and unnecessary to say that if, under a system 
where the accumulations distributed per capita would be less 
than a thousand dollars, thirty-one thousand obtained posses- 
sion of more than half of the accunuilated wealth of the 
counlr\ , it is impossible that others should have a competence 
or an independence. 

So it happens, Mr. President, that our society is becoming 
rapidly stratified, almost hopelessly stratified, into a condition 
of superfluously rich and helplessly poor. We are accustomed 
to speak of this as the land of the free and the home of the 
brave. It will soon be the home of the rich and the land of the 
slave. 

We point to Great Britain and we denounce aristocracy, 
and privileged and titled classes, and landed estates. We 
thought when we had abolished primogeniture and entail, that 
we had forever forbidden and prevented these enormous and 
dangerous accumulations; but, sir, we had forgotten that cap- 



"The Image and Superscription of C^sar." 323 

ital could combine; we were unaware of the yet undeveloped 
capacity of corporations, and so, as I say, it happens upon the 
threshold and in the vestibule of our second century, with 
all this magnificent record behind us, with this tremendous 
achievement in the way of wealth, population, invention, op- 
portunity for happiness, we are in a condition compared with 
which the accumulated fortunes of Great Britain are puerile 
and insignificant. 

It is no wonder, Mr. President, that the laboring, industrial, 
and agricultural classes of this country, who have been made 
intelligent under the impulse of universal education, have at 
last awakened to this tremendous condition and are inquiring 
whether or not this experiment has been successful. And, sir, 
the speculators must beware. They have forgotten that the 
conditions, political and social, here are not a reproduction of 
the conditions under which these circumstances exist in other 
lands. Here is no dynasty; here is no privilege or caste, or 
prerogative ; here are no standing armies ; here are no hered- 
itarv bondsmen, but every atom in our political system is quick, 
instinct, and endowed with life and power. His ballot at the 
box is the equivalent of the ballot of the richest speculator. 
Thomas Jefferson, the great apostle of modern Democracy, 
taught the lesson to his followers, and they have profited well 
by his instruction, that under a popular, democratic, repre- 
sentative government, wealth, culture, intelligence were ulti- 
mately no match for numbers. 

The numbers in this country, Mr. President, have learned 
at last the power of combination, and the speculators should 
not forget that, while the people of this country are gener- 
ous and just, they are jealous also, and that when discontent 
changes to resentment and resentment passes into exaspera- 



324 John James Ingalls. 

tion, one volume of a nation's history is closed and another 
will be opened. 

The speculators, Mr. President ! The cotton product of this 
country, I believe, is about six million bales. 

Mr. Butler: Seven million bales. 

Mr. Ingalls: Seven million bales, I am told. The trans- 
actions of the New York Cotton Exchange are forty million 
bales, representing transactions speculative, profitable, remuner- 
ative, by which some of these great accumulations have been 
piled up, an inconceivable burden upon the energies and in- 
dustries of the country. 

The production of coal oil, 1 believe, in this country has 
average something like twenty million barrels a year. The 
transactions of the New York Petroleum Exchange, year by 
year, average two billion barrels, fictitious, simulated, the in- 
struments of the gambler and the speculator, by means of which, 
through an impost upon the toil, and labor, and industry of 
every laborer engaged in the production of petroleum, addi- 
tional difficulties are imposed. 

It is reported that the coal alone that is mined in Penn- 
sylvania, indispensable to the comfort of millions of men, 
amounts in its annual product to about $40,000,000, of which 
one-third is profit over and above the cost of production, and 
a fair return for the capital invested. 

That is "speculation," Mr. President, and every dollar 
over and above the cost of production, with a fair return upon 
the capital invested, ever}'^ dollar of that fifteen or sixteen mil- 
lions is filched, robbed, violently plundered out of the earnings 
ofthe laborers and operatives and farmers who are] com- 
pelled to buy it; and yet it goes by the euphemistic name of 
"speculation" and is declared to be legitimate; it is eulogized 



"The Image and Superscription of C^sar." 325 

and defended as one of those practices that are entitled to 
respect and approbation. 

Nor is this all, Mr. President. The hostility between the 
employers and the employed in this country is becoming vin- 
dictive and permanently malevolent. Labor and capital are 
in two hostile camps to-day. Lockouts and strikes and labor 
difficulties have become practically the normal condition of 
our system, and it is estimated that during the year that 
has just closed, in consequence of these disorders, in conse- 
quence of this hostility and this warfare, the actual loss in 
labor, in wages, in the destruction of perishable commodities 
by the interruption of railway traffic, has not been less than 
$300,000,000. 

Mr. President, this is a serious problem. It may well 
engage the attention of the representatives of the States and 
of the American people. I have no sympathy with that school 
of political economists which teaches that there is an irrecon- 
cilable conflict between labor and capital, and which demands 
indiscriminate, hostile, and repressive legislation against men 
because they are rich and corporations because they are strong. 
Labor and capital should not be antagonists, but allies rather. 
They should not be opponents and enemies, but colleagues and 
auxiliaries whose cooperating rivalry is essential to national 
prosperity. But I cannot forbear to affirm that a political 
system under which such despotic power can be wrested from 
the people and vested in a few is a democracy only in name. 

A financial system under which more than one-half of the 
enormous wealth of the country, derived from the bounty of 
Nature and the labor of all, is owned by a little more than 
thirty thousand people, while one million American citizens, 



326 John Jamks Ingalls. 

able and willing to toil, are homeless tramps, starving for 
bread, requires readjustment. 

A social system which offers to tender, virtuous, and de- 
pendent women the alternative between prostitution and sui- 
cide as an escape from beggary, is organized crime, for which 
some dav vmrelenting justice will demand atonement and 
expiation. 

Mr. President, the man who loves his country and the man 
who studies her history will search in vain for any natural 
cause for this appalling condition. The earth has not forgotten 
to vield her increase. There has been no general failure of 
harvests. We have had benignant skies and the early and 
the latter rain. Neither famine nor pestilence has decimated 
our population nor wasted its energies. Immigration is flow- 
ing in from every land, and we are in the lusty prime of national 
youth and strength, with unexampled resources and every 
stimulus to their development ; but, sir, the great body of the 
American people are engaged to-day in studying these prob- 
lems that I have suggested in this morning hour. They are 
disheartened with misfortunes. They are weary with unre- 
quited toil. They are tired of the exactions of the speculators. 
They desire peace and rest. They are turning their attention 
to the great industrial questions which underlie their material 
prosperity. Thev are indifferent to party. They care noth- 
ing for Republicanism nor for Democracy as such. They are 
ready to say, "A plague on both your houses"; and they are 
ready also, Mr. President, to hail and to welcome any organiza- 
tion, any measure, any leader that promises them relief from 
the profitless strife of politicians and this turbulent and dis- 
tracting agitation, which has already culminated in violence 
and mav end in blood. 



"The Image axd Superscriptkjn of C-esar." 327 

Such, sir, is the verdict which I read in the elections from 
which we have just emerged, a verdict that was unexpected 
by the leaders of both parties, and which surprised alike the 
victors and the vanquished. It was a spontaneous, unpre- 
meditated protest of the people against existing conditions. 
It was a revolt of the national conscience against injustice, a 
movement that is full of pathos and also full of danger, because 
such movements sometimes make victims of those who are 
guiltless. It was not a Republican defeat. It was not a 
Democratic victory. It was a great upheaval and uprising, 
independent of and superior to both. It was a crisis that may 
become a catastrophe, filled with terrible admonition, but not 
without encouragement to those who understand and are ready 
to cooperate with it. It was a peaceful revolution, an attempt 
to resume rights that seemed to have been infringed. 

It is many years, Mr. President, since I predicted this 
inevitable result. In a speech delivered in this chamber on 
the 15th of February, 1878, from the seat that is now adorned 
by my honorable friend from Texas who sits before me [Mr. 
Reagan], I said : 

"We cannot disguise the truth that we are on the verge of an impending 
revolution. The old issues are dead. The people are arraying themselves 
upon one side or the other of a portentous contest. On one side is capital, 
formidably intrenched in privilege, arrogant from continued triumph, con- 
servative, tenacious of old theories, demanding new concessions, enriched 
by domestic levy and foreign commerce, and struggling to adjust all values 
to its own standard. On the other is labor, asking for employment, striv- 
ing to develop domestic industries, battling with the forces of Nature, and 
subduing the wilderness; labor, starving and sullen in cities, resolutely 
determined to overthrow a system under which the rich are growing richer 
and the poor are growing poorer; a system which gives to a Vanderbilt 
the possession of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, and condemns the 
])oor to a poverty which has no refuge from starvation but the j^rison oi 
the grave. 



328 John James Ingalls. 

"Our demands for relief, for justice, have been met with indifference 
■or disdain. The laborers of the country asking for employment are treat- 
•cd hke impudent mendicants begging for bread." 

Mr. President, it may be cause, it may be coincidence, it 
may be effect, it may be post hoc or it may be propter hoc, but 
it is historically true that this great blight that has fallen upon 
-our industries, this paralysis that has overtaken our financial 
system, coincided in point of time with the diminution of the 
circulating medium of the country. 

The public debt was declared to be payable in coin, and 
then the money power of silver was destroyed. The value of 
property diminished in proportion, wages fell, and the value 
•of everything was depreciated except debts and gold. The 
■mortgage, the bond, I lie cotipon. and the tax have retained 
immortal youth and vigor. They have not depreciated. The 
•debt remains, but the capacity to pay has been destroyed. 
'The accumulation of years disappears under the hammer of 
the sheriff, and the debtor is homeless, while the creditor 
obtains the security for his debt for a fraction of what it was 
^actuallv worth when the debt was contracted. 

There is, Mr. President, a deep-seated conviction among 
fthe people, which I fully share, that the demonetization of 
silver in 1873 was one element of a great conspiracy to de- 
liver the fiscal system of this country over to those by whom 
.it has, in my opinion, finally been captured. I see no proof 
'Of the assertion that the demonetization act of 1873 was fraud- 
•iilentlv or corruptly procured, but from the statements that 
liave been made it is impossible to avoid the conviction that 
it was part of a deliberate plan and conspiracy formed by those 
-who have been called "speculators" to still further increase 
^he value of the standard by which their accumulations were 



"The Image and Superscription of C^sar." 329 

to be measured. The attention of the people was not called 
to the subject. It is one of the anomalies and phenomena of 
legislation. 

That bill was pending in its various stages for four vears 
in both houses of Congress. It passed both bodies by decided 
majorities. It was read and reread and reprinted thirteen 
times, as appears by the records. It was commented upon 
in newspapers; it was the subject of discussion in financial 
bodies all over the country; and yet we have the concurrent 
testimony of every senator and every member of the House 
of Representatives who was present during the time that the 
legislation was pending and proceeding that he knew nothing 
whatever about the demonetization of silver and the destruc- 
tion of the coinage of the silver dollar. The Senator from 
Nevada [Mr. Stewart], who knows so many things, felt called 
upon to make a speech of an hour's duration to show that he 
knew nothing whatever about it. I have heard other mem- 
bers declaim and with one consent make excuse that they 
knew nothing about it. 

As I say, it is one of the phenomena and anomalies of legis- 
lation, and I have no other explanation to make than this: 
I believe that both houses of Congress and the President of 
the United States must have been hypnotized. So great was 
the power of capital, so profound was the impulse, so persist- 
ent was the determination, that the promoters of this scheme 
succeeded by the operation of mind-power and will-force in 
capturing and bewildering the intelligence of men of all parties, 
of members of both houses of Congress, and the members of 
the Cabinet, and the President of the United States, 

And yet, Mr, President, it cannot be doubted that the 
statements that these gentlemen make are true. There is no 



330 John James Ingalls. 

doubt of the sincerity or the candor of those who have testified 
upon this matter; and it is incredible (I am glad it occurred 
before I was a member of this body) that a change in our 
financial system that deprived one of the money metals of its 
debt-paying power, that changed the whole financial system 
of the country and to a certain extent the entire fiscal meth- 
ods of the world, could have been engineered through the Sen- 
ate and the House of Representatives and the Cabinet of the 
President and secured executive approval without a single 
human being knowing anything whatever about it. In an age 
of miracles, Mr. President, wonders never cease. 

It is true that this marvel was accomplished when the sub- 
ject was not one of public discussion. It was done at a time 
when, although the public mind was intenselv interested in 
financial subjects and methods of relief from existing condi- 
tions were assiduously sought, the suggestion had never pro- 
ceeded from any quarter that this could be accomplished by 
the demonetization of silver, or ceasing to coin the silver dol- 
lar. It was improvidently done, but it would not be more 
surprising, it would not be more of a strain upon human judg- 
ment, if fifteen years from now we were to be informed that 
no one was aware that in the bill that is now pending the prop- 
osition was not made for the free coinage of silver. 

Mr. President, there is not a State west of the Alleghany 
Mountains and south of the Potomac and Ohio rivers that is 
not in favor of the free coinage of silver. There is not a State 
in which, if that proposition were to be submitted to a popular 
vote, it would not be adopted by an overwhelming majority. 
I do not mean by that inclusion to say that in those States east 
of the Alleghanies arid north of the Ohio and Potomac rivers 
there is any hostility or indisposition to receive the benefits 



"The Image and Superscription of C^sar." 331 

that would result from the remonetization of silver. On the 
contrary, in the great commonwealths that lie to the northeast 
upon the Atlantic seaboard, New York, Pennsylvania, and the 
manufacturing and commercial States, I am inclined to believe 
from the tone of the press, from the declarations of many 
assemblies, that if the proposition were to be submitted there, 
it would also receive a majority of the votes. 

If the proposition were to be submitted to the votes of the 
people of this country at large, whether the silver dollar should 
be recoined and silver remonetized, notwithstanding the proph- 
ecies, the predictions, the animadversions of those who are 
opposed to it, I have not the slightest doubt that the great 
majority of the people, irrespective of party, would be in favor 
of it, and would so record themselves. They have declared 
in favor of it for the past fifteen years, and they have been 
juggled with, they have been thwarted, they have been pal- 
tered with and dealt with in a double sense. The word of 
promise that was made to their ear in the platforms of political 
parties has been broken to their hope. There was a majority 
in this body at the last session of Congress in favor of the free 
coinage of silver. The compromise that was made was not 
what the people expected nor what they had a right to demand. 
They, felt that they had been trifled with, and that is one cause 
of the exasperation expressed in the verdict of November 4th. 

I feel impelled to make one further observation. Warn- 
ings and admonitions have been plenty in this debate. We 
have been admonished of the danger that would follow; we 
have been notified of what would occur if the free coinage of 
silver were supported by a majority of this body, or if it were 
to be adopted as a part of our financial system. I am not a 
prophet, nor the son of a prophet; but 1 say to those who are 



332 John James Ingalls. 

now arraying themselves against the deliberately expressed 
judgment of the American people, a judgment that they know* 
has been declared and recorded — I say to the members of this 
body, I say, so far as I may do so with propriety, to the mem- 
bers of the coordinate branch of Congress, and I say, if without 
impropriety I may do so, to the Executive of the Nation, that 
there will come a time when the people will be trifled with no 
longer on this subject. 

Once, twice, thrice, by executive inter\-ention, Democratc 
and Republican, by parliamentary proceedings that I need not 
characterize, by various methods of legislative jugglery, the 
deliberate purpose of the American people, irrespective of 
party, has been thwarted, it has been defied, it has been con- 
tumeliously trodden under foot; and I repeat to those who 
have been the instruments and the implements, no matter 
what the impulse or the motive or the intention may have 
been, at some time the people will elect a House of Represent- 
atives, they will elect a Senate of the United States, they will 
elect a President of the United States, who will carry out their 
pledges and execute the popular will. 

Mr. President, by the readjustment of the political forces 
of the Nation under the Eleventh Census, the seat of political 
power has at last been transferred from the circumference of 
this country to its center. It has been transferred from the 
seaboard to that great intramontane region between the Alle- 
ghanies and the Sierras, extending from the British possessions 
to the Gulf of Mexico, a region whose growth is one of the won- 
ders and marv'els of modern civilization. It seems as if the 
column of migration had paused in its westward march to build 
upon those tranquil plains and in those fertile valleys a fabric 
of civilization that should be the wonder and the admiration 



"The Image and Superscription of C^sar." 333 

of the world, rich in every element of present prosperity, but 
richer in every prophecy of future greatness and renown. 

When I went West, Mr. President, as a carpetbagger in 
1858, St. Louis was an outpost of civilization, Jeiferson City 
was the farthest point reached by a railroad, and in all that 
great wilderness, extending from the sparse settlements along 
the Missouri to the summits of the Sierra Nevada and from 
the Yellowstone to the caiions of the Rio Grande, a vast sol- 
itude from which I have myself since that time voted to ad- 
mit seven States into the American Union, there was neither 
harvest nor husbandry, neither habitation nor home, save the 
hut of the hunter and the wigwam of the savage. Mr. Presi- 
dent, we have now within those limits, extending southward 
from the British possessions and embracing the States of the 
Mississippi Valley, the Gulf, and the southeastern Atlantic, a 
vast productive region, the granary of the world, a majority 
of the members of this body, of the House of Representatives, 
and of the Electoral College. 

We talk with admiration of Egypt. For thirty centuries 
the ruins of its cities, its art, its religions, have been the marvel 
of mankind. The Pyramids have survived the memory of 
their builders, and the Sphinx still questions with solemn gaze 
the vague mystery of the desert. 

The great fabric of Egyptian civilization, with its wealth 
and power, the riches of its art, its creeds, and faiths, and 
philosophies, was reared from the labors of a few million slaves 
under the lash of despots, upon a narrow margin four hun- 
dred and fifty miles long and ten miles wide, comprising in all, 
with the delta of the Nile, no more than ten thousand square 
miles of fertile land. . 



334 Tonx James Ingalls. 

Who, sir, can foretell the future of that region to whicli I 
have adverted, with its twenty thousand miles of navigable 
water-courses, with its hundreds of thousands of square miles 
of soil, excelling in fecundity all that of the Nile, when the 
labor of centuries of freemen under the impulse of our insti- 
tutions shall have brought forth their perfect results? 

Mr. President, it is to that region, with that population 
and with such a future, that the political power of this country 
has at last been transferred, and they are now unanimously 
demanding the free coinage of silver. It is for that reason 
that I shall cordially support the amendment proposed by the 
Senator from Nevada. In doing so I not only follow the dic- 
tates of my own judgment, but I carry out the wishes of a 
great majority of my constituents, irrespective of party or of 
political afiiliation. I have been for the free coinage of silver 
from tlie (jutset, and I am free to say that, after having observed 
the operations of the act of 1878, I am more than ever con- 
vinced of the wisdom of that legislation and the futility of the 
accusations by which it was assailed. 

The people of the country that I represent hav^e lost their 
reverence for gold. They have no longer any superstition 
about coin. Notwithstanding all the declarations of the mono- 
metallists, notwithstanding all the assaults that have been 
made by those who are in favor of still further increasing the 
value of the standard by which their possessions are measured, 
they know that money is neither wealth nor capital nor value, 
and that it is merely the creation of the law, by which all 
these are estimated and measured. 

We speak, sir, about the volume of money and about its 
relation to the wealth and capital of the country. Let me ask 
you, sir, for a moment, what would occur if the circulating 



"The Image and Superscription of C^sar." 335 

medium were to be destroyed? Suppose that the gold and sil- 
ver were to be withdrawn suddenly from circulation and melted 
up into bars and ingots and buried in the earth from which 
they were taken. Suppose that all the paper money, silver 
certificates, gold certificates, national bank notes, Treasury 
notes, were stacked in one mass at the end of the Treasury 
building and a torch applied to them and thev were to be 
destroyed by fire and their ashes spread, -like the ashes of 
Wickliffe, upon the Potomac, to be spread abroad wide as its 
waters be. 

What would be the effect? Would not this country be 
worth exactly as much as it is to-day? Would there not be 
just as many acres of land, as many houses, as many farms, as 
many days of labor, as much improved and unimproved mer- 
chandise, and as much property as there is to-day? The result 
would be that commerce would languish, the sails of the ships 
would be furled in the harbors, the great trains would cease to 
to run to and fro on their errands, trade would be reduced to 
barter, and, the people finding their energies languishing, civil- 
ization itself would droop, and we should be reduced to the 
condition of the nomadic wanderers upon the primeval plains. 

Suppose, on the other hand, that, instead of being destroyed, 
all the money in this country were to be put in the possession 
of a single man — gold and paper and silver — and he were to 
be moored in mid-Atlantic upon a raft with his great hoard, 
or to be stationed in the middle of Sahara's desert, without 
food to nourish, or shelter to cover, or the means of transpor- 
tation to get away. Who would be the richest man, the pos- 
sessor of the gigantic treasure or the humblest settler upon the 
plains of the West, with a dugout to shelter him and with corn- 
meal and water enough for his daily bread? 



336 John James Ingalls. 

Doubtless, Mr. President, you search the Scriptures daily, 
and are therefore familiar with the story of those depraved 
politicians of Judea who sought to entangle the Master in His 
talk by asking Him if it were lawful to pay tribute to Caesar 
or not. He, perceiving the purpose that they had in view, 
said unto them, "Show me the tribute money." And they 
brought Him a penny. He said, "Whose is this image and 
superscription?" And they replied, "Caesar's." And He said, 
"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God 
the things that are God's." 

I hold, Mr. President, between my thumb and finger a silver 
denarius, or "penny" of that ancient time, perhaps the iden- 
tical coin that was brought by the hypocritical Herodian, 
bearing the image and superscription of Caesar. U has been 
money for more than twenty centuries. It was money when 
Jesus walked the waves, and in the tragic hour at Gethseniane. 
Imperial Caesar is "dead and turned to clay." He has yielded 
to a mightier conqueror, and his eagles, his ensigns, and his 
trophies are indistinguishable dust. His triumphs and his 
victories are a school-boy's tale. Rome herself is but a mem- 
ory. Her marble porticoes and temples and palaces are in 
ruins. The sluggish monk and the lazzy lazzaroni haunt the 
Senate House and the Coliseum, and the derisive owl wakes 
the echoes of the voiceless Forum. But this little contem- 
porary disk of silver is money still, because it bears the image 
and superscription of Caesar. And, sir, it will continue to 
be money for twenty centuries more, should it resist so long 
the corroding canker and the gnawing tooth of Time. But if 
one of these pages here should take this coin to the railway 
track, as boys sometimes do, and allow the train to pass over it, 
in one "single instant its function would have disappeared, and 



"The Image and Superscription of C^sar." 337 

it would be money no longer, because the image and super- 
scription of Caesar would have disappeared. 

Mr. President, money is the creation of law, and the Amer- 
ican people have learned that lesson, and they are indifferent 
to the assaults, they are indifferent to the arguments, they are 
indifferent to the aspersions which are cast upon them for 
demanding that the law of the United States shall place the 
image and superscription of Caesar upon silver enough and gold 
enough and paper enough to enable them to transact without 
embarrassment, without hindrance, without delay, and with- 
out impoverishment their daily business affairs, and that shall 
give them a measure of value that will not make their earnings 
and their belongings the sport and the prey of speculators. 

Mr. President, this contest can have but one issue. The 
experiment that has begun will not fail. It is useless to deny 
that many irregularities have been tolerated here ; that many 
crimes have been committed in the sacred name of liberty; 
that our public affairs have been scandalous episodes to which 
every patriotic heart reverts with distress ; that there have been 
envy and jealousy in high places ; that there have been treach- 
erous and lying platforms; that there have been shallow com- 
promises and degrading concessions to popular errors; but 
amid all these disturbances, amid all these contests, amid all 
these inexplicable aberrations, the march of the Nation has 
been steadily onward. 

At the beginning of our second century we have entered 
upon a new social and political movement whose results cannot 
be predicted, but which are certain to be infinitely momentous. 
That the progress will be upward, I have no doubt. Through 
the long and desolate tract of history; through the seemingly 
aimless struggles, the random gropings of humanity, the tur- 



33^ John James Ingalls. 

bulent chaos of wrong, injustice, crime, doubt, want, and 
wretchedness, the dungeon and the block, the Inquisition and 
the stake, the trepidations of the oppressed, the bloody exul- 
tations and triumphs of tyrants, 

"The uplifted ax, the agonizing wheel, 
Luke's iron crown and Damien's bed of steel," 

the tendency has been towards the light. Out of every conflict 
some man or sect or nation has emerged with more privileges, 
enlarged opportunities, purer religion, broader liberty, and 
greater capacity for happiness; and out of this conflict in 
which we are now engaged I am confident finally will come 
liberty, justice, equality; the continental unity of the Amer- 
ican Republic, the social fraternitv and the industrial inde- 
pendence of the American people. [Applause in the galleries.] 



THE HUMOROUS SIDE OF POLITICS. 



Charles Sumner had no more sense of humor than a hip- 
popotamus, but there was something excessively humorous 
about his colossal self-consciousness, of which it is no paradox 
to say he was apparently unconscious. 

His egotism was inordinately vast, though innocent in its 
simplicity. It was far from conceit, and led to no disparage- 
ment of his associates. Indeed, I doubt if he ever instituted 
comparisons. 

Probably Grant, whom he hated and abused, came the near- 
est to sizing him up when he said: "The reason Sumner 
doesn't believe in the Bible is because he didn't write it 
himself. " 

He had large intellectual powers, but not so large as he 
imagined. He had no influence on legislation. He was unable 
to endure opposition. If he could not have his own will, he 
would do nothing. But this is not intended as an analysis of 
liis work or his character. I started out to say that soon after 
I entered the Senate we were riding up the Avenue in a street- 
car, and, by the way of conversation, he asked me about my 
predecessor, Senator Pomeroy, who had met with an accident 
politically. He spoke of his early fidelity to the cause of free- 
dom, and the unusual degree to which he held the confidence 
of his associates till the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. 

339 



340 John James Ingalls. 

"Indeed," he continued, with great gravity, "had he died 
before that time, Kansas would have owed him a monument, 
and I should myself have pronounced his eulogy." 



Thejself-consciousness of Roscoe Conkling was quite as 
egregious as that of Mr. Sumner, but his egotism was tinged 
with vanity and compounded with scorn, contempt, and dis- 
dain. He was a past-master in "the gentle art of making ene- 
mies," and well versed in the vocabulary of derision and hatred. 
Hamlet might have had him in mind when, in his soliloquy, he 
mentioned, among other things that make life not worth living, 
"the proud man's contumely." The hinges of his knees were 
pregnant, and he had none of the thrift that follows fawning. 
When I first knew him, he was in the meridian of his great 
powers. He possessed an extraordinary assemblage of phys- 
ical and intellectual attributes that made him by far the most 
prominent, picturesque, and impressive figure in public life. 

His presence was noble and commanding; his voice and 
elocution were superb; his bearing and address somewhat too 
formal, but marked by dignity and grace. His vocabulary 
was rich and ornamental, sometimes almost to the borders 
of the grotesque, but fertilized with apposite quotations and 
allusions that showed wide reading, especially in poetry, ro- 
mance, and the drama. Some hostile critic described one of 
his speeches as a "purple earthquake of oratory." But he 
was always heard with delight on any theme. 

Had he possessed a greater flexibility of temper, been less 
inexorable in his animosities, and learned how to forget where 
he could not forgive, there was no height he might not have 
reached, even the highest in the people's gift. But he would 



The Humorous Side of Poutics. 341 

not flatter Neptune for his trident, nor Jove for his power to 
thunder. 

In that state of moral typhoid which always follows great 
wars, an era of profligacy, of sudden wealth at the price of 
honor, of Credit Mobilier and Star Route scandals, he was not 
contaminated. He walked through the furnace with no smell 
of fire upon his garments. 

Toward the end of his career in the Senate he fell out with 
the newspapers, and sometimes when he arose to speak, every 
reporter in the press gallery closing his note-book, the whole 
crowd would rush noisily out into the lobby, leaving every seat 
without an occupant. 

He flushed at the insult, but speaking of journalism after- 
ward, he was moved to remark, in his propitiatory way, that 
the only people in the world authorized to use the first person 
plural, "we," in speaking of themselves, were "editors and 
men with tapeworms." 

His allusion to Governor Cornell as "that lizard on the 
hill," and to President Arthur, after his refusal to abdicate in 
favor of Mr. Conkling, as "the prize ox in American politics," 
and his refusal to speak for Blaine in the campaign of 1884, on 
the ground that he was "not engaged in criminal practice," 
are well-known illustrations of his methods of compelling his 
political associates to be either his vassals or his enemies. 

But Jove did not always sit on Olympus. Sometimes he 
descended to the plain, though never quite on terms of abso- 
lute equality with mankind. He was inclined to "jolly" those 
whom he did not feel disposed to bully. 

When Thurman once asked him, in a debate on some legal 
proposition, why he kept looking at him all the time, Conkling 
replied, with elaborate raillery, that he turned to him as the 



342 John James Ingalls. 

source and fountain of the common laws as, at the call of the 
muezzin, the Mussulman turned to Mecca. 

! Another favorite butt for his chaff, banter, and ridicule 
was Judge David Davis, a native of Maryland, who migrated 
early to Illinois, where he laid the foundation of an immense 
fortune by sagacious investments in farming lands. He was 
an original friend of Lincoln's, and a delegate to the convention 
that nominated him for the Presidency. Riding with him 
once from Bloomington to Ouincy, he gave me a most inter- 
esting inside history of the movement for Lincoln, one of the 
extraordinary facts being that the entire expense of his nom- 
ination, including headquarters, telegraphing, music, fare of 
delegations, and other incidentals, was less than seven hundred 
dollars. 

He was a Falstaff in proportions and good nature, and 
the best guesser in American politics. Lincoln appointed him 
Justice of the Supreme Court in 1862. The greater part of his 
active life was passed on the bench, where he was accustomed 
to have the last word and to delivering opinions rather than 
defending them, which is not a good preparation for the delib- 
erations of the Senate. 

He was an inveterate compromiser and composer of strife, 
which led Conkling to allude to him in debate as "the largest 
wholesale and retail dealer in political soothing syrup the world 
had ever known." 

Later, in the discussion of the same measure, Davis inter- 
rupted Conkling by way of correction or anticipation, which 
Conkling resented by quoting ore rotunda two lines from one 
of Watts' hymns: 

"He knows the words that I would speak 
Ere from my opening lips they break." 



The Humorous Side of Politics. 343 

To Davis' elephantine attempt to smooth over his break 
by some far-fetched eulogy, Conkling replied : 

"Praise undeserved is censure in disguise." 

The stenographer did not recognize the quotation, so that 
one of Alexander Pope 's most polished lines stands as an orig- 
inal, extemporaneous phrase of Mr. Conkling 's. 

It seems incredible that a personage of such vast and 
unusual powers, who for twenty years was a most prominent 
actor in the great drama of public affairs, who filled so large 
a space in the thought of the people, who was caricatured, 
lampooned, praised, and reviled without stint or measure, 
should have faded so absolutely from the memory of men. 
Even to those of his contemporaries who survive, he has 
already become a gorgeous reminiscence. 

Patriotic, arrayed always for truth, right, and justice, his 
name is identified with no great measure, and his life seems not 
so much an actual battle with hostile powers as a splendid 
scene upon the stage, of which the swords are lath, the armor 
tinsel, the bastions and ramparts painted screens, the wounds 
and blood fictitious ; on which victories and defeats are feigned, 
with sheet-iron thunder, and tempests of peas and lycopo- 
dium — and the curtain falling to slow music, while the audience 
applauds and departs. 



William Maxwell Evarts came to the Senate in 1885, at the 
age of sixty-seven. He was a candidate in 1861, and waited 
twenty-four years for the realization of his ambition. The 
interval was opulent in noble achievements at the bar, in 
statesmanship, in oratory, and the highest civic and social 
activities. 



344 ' ' John James Ingalls. 

He was Attorney-General of the United States under 
Andrew Johnson and his counsel on his impeachment. He 
represented the Government before the Geneva tribunal of 
arbitration on the Alabama claims. He was the leading attor- 
ney for President Hayes, in behalf of the Republican party, 
before the Electoral Commission, and Secretary of State from 
.1877 to 1881. 

He was a scholar without pedantry, and a man of the world 
"in the highest sense, without cynicism or frivolity. 
• There is always a dull suspicion in leaden, opaque, and 
barren minds that wit, brilliancy, and imagination, and the 
corruscations of the intellect are incompatible with great men- 
tal power and solidity of judgment. 

Mr. Evarts refuted this fallacy, for in addition to his tri- 
umphs as a lawyer, in politics, and as a practical man of affairs, 
he was altogether the most brilliant and versatile talker of his 
time. 

The characteristic of his conversation was a genial and hu. 
morous urbanity. He never wounded or stung. He seldom told 
stories or related anecdotes. His wit was like a spring that 
makes the meadows green. He appreciated what was best in 
•society, art, literature, and life, and had the keenest interest in 
the virtues and foibles of humanity. His manner was refined 
and suave. He never posed, nor monopolized, nor strained for 
effect ; and as he never hurt self-love by irony, nor vanity by 
ridicule and satire, so he never shocked the devout by profan- 
ity, nor offended the modest with impudicity. 

Probably the mot of Mr, Evarts most widely flown con- 
cerns the apochryphal feat told of George Washington in ' ' jerk- 
ing" a silver dollar across the Rappahannock. 



The Humorous Side of Politics. 345 

The story goes that a party of tourists, visiting the haunts 
of Washington in Virginia, came to the spot, where the anec- 
dote was related by some local antiquary, to illustrate the pro- 
digious strength of the man whom Providence made childless 
that he might become the Father of His Country. 

Aside from the unlikelihood that the thrifty George would 
throw a silver dollar over the river when a pebble would have 
done as well, the distance was so great that the skeptics were 
incredulous, and another legend seemed on the edge of be- 
ing destroyed, when Mr. Evarts came to its rescue with the 
suggestion that "a dollar went much farther in those days 
than now." 

The explanation is so simple and so satisfactory that the 
wonder is that it occurred to no one before. 

Among the guests at a dinner to Daniel Webster in New 
York was Dr. Benjamin Brandreth, the inventor of a cele- 
brated pill known by his name. Mr. Bvarts united these two 
great men in a volunteer toast to "Daniel Webster and Ben- 
jamin Brandreth, the pillars of the Constitution." 

Objections had been filed with the Judiciary Committee 
to the confirmation of a nomination on account of the disso- 
lute habits of the appointee. When the case came up for con- 
sideration, the chairman called for affidavits. The clerk pro- 
duced a number from the files. Consulting his docket, Mr. 
Edmunds thought there were more, and others were found. A 
search disclosed another batch that had been overlooked or 
mislaid. 

"The papers in this case," said Mr. Evarts, "appear to be 
more dissipated, if possible, than the candidate." 

Mr. Evarts was a bon vivant, an inveterate diner-out, and 
a giver of most elaborate and artistic dinners himself. To a 



346 JoHX James Ingalls. 

lady who expressed surprise that one of such slender frame 
and fragile physique could endure so many feasts with their 
varying yiands and different wines, he replied that it was not 
so much the different wines that gave him trouble as the 
indifferent ones. 

President Hayes was a total abstainer — at home. Scof- 
fers said he only drank the "O. P. brands." His state din- 
ners, otherwise very elegant and costly, were served without 
wines. The only concession to conviviality was the Roman 
punch, . flavored with Jamaica rum. Evarts was accustomed 
to allude to this course as "the life-saving station." 

Rising to address informally the guests at a Thanksgiving 
dinner, he began: "You have been giving your attention to 
a turkey stuffed with sage. You are now about to consider 
a sage stuffed with turkey." 

When he was Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President 
Hayes, the struggle for places in the diplomatic service was 
very active. As he was leaving the elevator at the close of a 
very busy day, he said the conductor since noon had "taken up 
a very large collection for foreign missions ' ' ; and when asked 
what had been done, he replied: "Many called, but few 
chosen." 

As an orator, Mr. Evarts was not limpid. But he con- 
founded the critics who condemned his long sentences by say- 
ing that, so far as his observation went, the people who objected 
to long sentences belonged to the criminal classes. 



General Grant was popularly supposed to be habitually 
grave, reserv^ed, and taciturn, but on occasion was very viva- 
cious in conversation, with a keen sense of dry, quiet humor. 



The Humorous Side of Poutics. 347 

One evening, after a stag dinner at the White House, the 
company assembled in the library to smoke. Talk fell upon 
the happiest period of life — childhood, youth, manhood, age. 
Grant listened, but said nothing till asked for his opinion. 

"Well," he replied, after a pause, "I believe I would like 
to be born again," which indicated that he had found existence 
enjoyable all the way through. 

One of Grant's Secretaries of the Navy was George M. 
Robeson, of New Jersey, for whom Senator Carpenter, of Wis- 
consin, a great jurist and advocate, conceived a violent dislike. 
His mildest definition of Robeson was that he was "a great 
lawyer among sailors, and a great sailor among lawyers." 

Some one took Thurman to task for having referred rather 
contemptuously to the beneficiaries of a certain measure as 
"things." 

"Things!" replied Thurman, testily, "why, we are all 
things — " " 'To all men,' " interrupted Mr. Edmunds, before 
he could finish his sentence, and the discussion ended. 

Holman, of Indiana, for many years waged vigilant and 
unrelenting war on amendments to appropriation bills, which 
gave him the name of "The Watchdog of the Treasury." He 
was very strong in his district, and had an unusually long ser- 
vice, which gave him great power and influence in the House 
by his knowledge of the rules and practice. 

Toward the end of his term an amendment was offered in 

which a near relative was much interested. The familiar "I 

object" was not heard, and the amendment went through with 

his support ; whereupon a member sitting near exclaimed : 

" ' 'Tis sweet to hear the honest watchdog's bark 

Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home!' " 

Nothing brighter and more apt has been said in either 
house of Congress since the inauguration of Washington. 



FAMOUS FEUDS. 



I. 

CoNKLiNG, Blaine, Lamar. 

On the 1 8th of June, 1879, the second debate of the extra 
session on the Army Bill was in progress in the Senate. 

The Democratic majority was strenuously pressing the bill 
to its passage, with a clause prohibiting any expenditure of 
the appropriation for the payment of troops as police to keep 
the peace at the polls. 

The Republican minority, foreseeing defeat, had resorted 
to filibustering, dilatory proceedings, and motions to adjourn. 
Mr. Lamar took no part in the debate, although voting uni- 
formly with his party. 

During the morning hour, before the Army Bill was taken 
up for consideration, Lamar called up the bill to create a Mis- 
sissippi River Commission, in which he was much interested, 
reported from the committee of which he was chairman. 

The consideration of this measure consumed the morn- 
ing hour, and the time appointed for taking up the Army Bill 
as the special order arrived. Mr. Lamar suggested that the 
Commission Bill could be disposed of in a few minutes, and 
asked unanimous consent for that purpose. 

Mr. Withers, of \^irginia, who had the Army Bill in charge, 
had given notice that he would ask for a final vote before 

adjovuTiment that day, and declined to consent to Mr. Lamar's 

348 



Famous Feuds. 349 

request, unless it was agreed that a vote on the Commission 
Bill should be taken without further discussion. 

Mr. Allison suggested, "In a few minutes." 

Mr. Withers insisted upon his rights under the rules. Mr. 
Conkling asked if, notwithstanding unanimous consent was 
given to Mr. Lamar's request, the Senator from Virginia would 
insist upon a vote that day on the Army Bill. Mr. Withers 
replied that he would. Mr. Conkling then suggested that the 
Senator from Mississippi have unanimous consent to conclude 
the consideration of his bill, and if, when a reasonable hour 
of adjournment had been reached, there were senators who 
wanted to be heard on the Army Bill, the vote should be 
postponed until the following day. 

Mr. Withers insisted that it was important that a vote 
should be had that day. Mr. Conkling did not think this fair. 
Senator Gordon, of Georgia, explained that the Commission 
Bill would not take more than ten or fifteen minutes. Mr. 
Conkling then stated that, for himself, he would consent and 
trust to the other side of the chamber, when the ordinary hour 
of adjournment was reached, that if any senator desired to be 
heard, he should not be cut off or pushed into the night. 

Mr. Withers here interrupted, and said: "The Senator 
must not trust to my courtesy in the matter, if he alludes to 
me. 

Mr. Conkling retorted, with contemptuous irony: "I did 
not indicate the Senator from Virginia as one to whose courtesy 

I would trust." 

After further desultory discussion, Mr. Lamar limited his 
request to twenty minutes, and at last unanimous consent was 
given. The bill was quickly disposed of and the Army Bill 
was immediately taken up. 



350 John James Ingalls. 

The legislative session was prolonged until noon of June 19. 
Late in the sitting — it must have been about midnight — a 
wrangle occurred between Senators Blaine and Saulsbury, in 
which the latter charged the former and his party with obstruct- 
ing legislation. 

At this juncture Senator Conkling arose and referred to 
Mr. Lamar's request of that morning, and said that he had 
given his consent, relying on the courtesy of Democratic sen- 
ators that the final vote would not be pressed on the Army Bill 
that day. 

He continued: "Looking to that side, I received a nod, 
not from one, not from two, not from three, but from five 
Democratic senators." 

Upon these assurances he had ofifered a motion to adjourn, 
assuming that there would be no objection. 

He concluded by saying: "The Senator from Virginia 
rose with such a disclaimer as he had a right to make in order 
that he might keep within the bounds of his instructions from 
the committee ; but when I heard every Democratic senator 
vote to commit such an outrage as that upon the minority of 
this body and upon the Senator from Wisconsin, I do not deny 
that I felt my full share of indignation ; and during this even- 
ing, Mr. President, I wish to assume all my own responsibility, 
and so much more as any Republican senator feels irksome to 
him, for what has taken place. I have endeavored to show 
this proud and domineering majority — determined, apparently, 
to ride rough-shod over the rights of the minority — that they 
can not and they should not do it. But I am ready to be 
deemed responsible in advance for the assurance that while I 
remain a member of this body, and, at all events, until we have 
a previous question, no minority shall be gagged down or throt- 



Famous Feuds. 351 

tied or insulted by such a proceeding as this. I say, Mr. Pres- 
ident, and I measure my expression, that it was an act not only 
insulting, but an act of bad faith. I mean that." 

It would be quite difficult to exaggerate the air of elaborate 
and haughty insolence with which this arraignment and threat 
was delivered. The concentrated and sonorous contempt of 
his denunciation of the majority, the bitter scorn of his con- 
tumelious epithets passed all bounds. It was unparliamentary 
and beyond the limits of debate, but he was not called to 
order. 

It gave Mr. Lamar the opportunity for which he had been 
waiting so long. He rose to a personal statement, and said: 
"I am not aware of anything that occurred which would pro- 
duce such an impression. If I had, although I would not 
have been instrumental consciously in producing such an 
impression, I should have felt myself bound by it, and would 
have made the motion for an adjournment, in order to give 
the Senator from Wisconsin an opportunity to discuss this bill. 

"With reference to the charge of bad faith that the Senator 
from New York has intimated toward those of us who have 
been engaged in opposing these motions to adjourn, I have only 
to say that if I am not superior to such attacks from such a 
source, I have lived in vain. It is not my habit to indulge in 
personalites ; but I desire to say here to the Senator, that in 
intimating anything inconsistent, as he has done, with perfect 
good faith, I pronounce his statement a falsehood, which I 
repel with all the unmitigated contempt that I feel for the 
author of it." 

This was a solar-plexus blow. Mr. Conkling had contrib- 
uted much to the acrimony and exasperation of the time. His 
•attitude toward the Southern Democracy had been that of 



352 John James Ingalls. 

unrelenting severity. He was aggressively radical. He advo- 
cated drastic measures for the protection of the negro and the 
assertion of the national authority. His manner was often 
offensively dictatorial and domineering. He trampled upon 
the sensibilities of his adversaries like a rhinoceros crashing 
through a tropical jungle. They grew restive, and there were 
subterranean rumors from time to time that they "had it in" 
for Conkling and intended to "do him up" at the earliest 
opportunity. 

In the code of honor, so called, to give the lie is equivalent 
to a blow. It is the supreme verbal affront, and can be expi- 
ated only by blood. It is the intolerable stigma. The man 
who is branded as a liar publicly is in a cul-de-sac. He can 
go no further. He must wear the epithet or fight. To bite 
the thumb, or thrust out the tongue and say, "Tu quoque," does- 
not shift the burden of dishonor in the estimation of gentlemen. 

For the first time in the six years that I had known him,. 
Conkling was, figuratively speaking, "knocked out." Accus- 
tomed to obsequious adulation which had swollen his egre- 
gious vanity to the point of tumefaction, his habitual attitude 
was that of supercilious disdain. 

He was by far the most picturesque and commanding figure 
of an historic epoch. 

His self-consciousness was inordinate, but justified by a 
magnificent presence, by the possession of extraordinary intel- 
lectual gifts, by national reputation, and the devotion of a 
great constituency. 

^ In the Senate he had no rivals. No one challenged him. 
If any differed with him, it was with deference, almost with 
timidity. He seemed indifferent alike to approbation or cen- 
sure. Like Wolsey, he was 



Famous Feuds. 353 

"Lofty and sour to them that loved him not; 
To those men that sought him, sweet as summer." 

That this Alcibiades of Republicanism should be called a 
liar and denounced as an object of unmitigated contempt in 
the forum of his most imposing triumphs, before crowded 
galleries, by a "Confederate brigadier," was an indignity that 
seemed incredible. Had a dynamite bomb exploded in the 
gangway of the brilliantly lighted chamber, the consternation 
could hardly have been more bewildering. 

Instantaneous silence fell. The gasping spectators held 
their breath. Mr. Conkling acted like one stunned. He be- 
came pallid and then flushed again. His disconcertion was 
extreme. He hesitated and floundered pitiably. He pre- 
tended at first not to have heard the insult, and asked Lamar 
in effect to repeat it. 

He said: "Mr. President, I was diverted during the com- 
mencement of a remark the culmination of which I heard from 
the member from Mississippi. If I understood him aright, he 
intended to impute, and did, in plain and unparliamentary 
language, impute to me an intentional misstatement. The 
Senator does not disclaim that?" 

Mr. Lamar: "I will state what I intended, so that there 
may be no mistake — " 

The Presiding Officer : ' ' Does the Senator from New York 
yield?" 

Mr. Lamar: "All that I—" 

The Presiding Officer: "Does the Senator from New York 
yield to the Senator from Mississippi?" 

Mr. Lamar: "He appealed to me to know, and I will 
give-" 



354 John James Ingalls. 

The Presiding Officer: "The Senator from New York has 
the floor. Does he yield to the Senator from Mississippi?" 

As he had asked Lamar a question which that senator was 
endeavoring to answer, the interrogations of the Chair seemed 
superfluous, but they afforded time for reflection, and at last 
Mr. Conkling said : "I am willing to respond to the Chair. I 
shall respond to the Chair in due time. Whether I am willing 
to respond to the member from Mississippi depends entirely 
upon what that member intends to say, and what he did say. 
For the time being I do not choose to hold any communication 
with him. The Chair understands me now; I will proceed. 

' ' I understood the Senator from Mississippi to state in plain 
and unparliamentary language that the statement of mine to 
which he referred was a falsehood, if I caught his word aright. 
Mr. President, this is not the place to measure with any man 
the capacity to violate decency, to violate the rules of the Sen- 
ate, or to commit any of the improprieties of life. I have 
only to say that if the Senator — the member from Mississippi — 
did impute, or intended to impute, to me a falsehood, noth- 
ing except the fact that this is the Senate would prevent my 
denouncing him as a blackguard and a coward." (Applause 
in the galleries.) 

The Presiding Officer: "There should be no cheering in 
the galleries. If there shall be any more, the Chair will order 
the galleries to be cleared. The Senator from New York will 
proceed." 

Mr. Conkling: "Let me be more specific, Mr. President. 
Should the member from Mississippi, except in the presence of 
the Senate, charge me by intimation or otherwise with false- 
hood, I would denounce him as a blackguard, as a coward, 
and a liar; and understanding what he said as I have, the rules 



Famous Feuds. 



3.->^ 



and the proprieties of the Senate are the only restraint upon 
me. I do not think I need say anything else, Mr. President." 

Mr. Lamar concluded : " I have only to say, that the Senator 
from New York understood me correctly. I did mean to say 
just precisely the words, and all that they imported. I beg 
pardon of the Senate for the unparliamentary language. It 
was very harsh ; it was very severe ; it was such as no good 
man would deser\'e and no brave man would wear." 

Mr. Conkling never seemed quite the same afterward. His 
prestige was gone. His enemies — and thev were many — 
exulted in his discomfiture. Two years later he resigned his 
seat in the Senate, and his life afterward was a prolonged mon- 
ologue of despair. To-dav he is a splendid reminiscence. To 
the next generation his fame will be a tradition. 



But of all the feuds of the century, the most far-reaching 
in its tragic consequences was the political duel between Conk- 
ling and Blaine, which began with their appearance in Congress 
and ended only with their lives. They were rivals and foes 
from the start. Of about the same age, they both aspired to 
leadership, but in temperament and intellectual habits they 
had nothing in common. They were altogether the most 
striking personalities of their generation. They were enemies 
by instinct. Their hostility was automatic. 

Their first altercation occurred April 30, 1866, in a debate 
on the charges against Provost-Marshal General Fry, in which 
it was alleged that Mr. Conkling, while a member of Congress, 
had taken a fee of $3,000 as a judge-advocate. 

During the discussion, which was extremely sensational, 
Mr. Blaine said: "I do not happen to possess the volubility 



356 John James Ingalls. 



of the gentleman from the Utica District. It took him thirty 
minutes the other day to explain that an alteration in tlie 
reporter's notes for the Globe was no alteration al all; and I 
do not think that he convinced the House after all. And it 
has taken him an hour to-day to explain that while he and 
General Fry have been at swords' points for a year, there has 
been no difficulty at all between them. 'Hie gentleman from 
New York has attempted to pass oil his appearance in this 
case as simply the appearance of counsel. I want to read 
again for the information of the House the appointment under 
which the gentleman from New York appeared as the pros- 
ecutor on the part of the GoNernment." 

]\Ir. Conkling replied that no commission had been issued 
to him by the Judge-Advocate General. 

Mr. Blaine interrupted, and the Speaker inquired: "Does 
the gentleman from New York vield to the gentleman from 
Maine?" 

To this Mr. Conkling savagely answered : ' ' No, sir ; I do 
not wish to have anything to do with the gentleman from 
Maine, not even so much as to yield him the floor." 

"All right," said ^Ir. Blaine; and Mr. Conkling resumed 
and presently said; "One thing further: If the member 
from Maine had the least idea how profoundly indifferent I am 
to his opinion upon the subject which he has been discussing, 
or upon any other subject personal to me, I think he would 
hardly take the trouble to rise here and express his opinion." 

As soon as he obtained the floor, Mr. Blaine responded : 
"As to the gentleman's cruel sarcasm, I hope he will not be 
too seveie. The contempt of that large-minded gentleman 
s so wilting; his haughty disdain, his grandiloquent swell, 
his majestic, supereminent, overpowering, turkey-gobbler strut 



Famous Feuds. 357 

has been so crushing to myself and all the members of this 
House, that I know it was an act of the greatest temerity for 
me to venture upon a controversy with him. But, sir, I know 
who is responsible for all this. I know that within the last 
five weeks, as members of the House will recollect, an extra 
strut has characterized the gentleman's bearing. It is not 
his fault. It is the fault of another. That gifted and sat- 
irical writer, Theodore Tilton, of the New York Independent, 
spent some weeks recently in this city. His letters published 
in that paper embraced, with many serious statements, a little 
jocose satire, a part of which was the statement that the man- 
tle of the late Winter Davis had fallen upon the member from 
New York. The gentleman took it seriously, and it has given 
his strut additional pomposity. It is striking. 'Hyperion to 
a satyr,' Thersites to Hercules, mud to marble, dunghill to 
diamond, a singed cat to a Bengal tiger, a whining puppv to a 
roaring lion. Shade of the mighty Davis, forgive the almost 
profanation of that jocose satire!" 

Conkling was a good hater, who neither forgave nor forgot. 
He never spoke to Blaine afterward, nor recognized his exist- 
ence. The "turkey-gobbler strut" and the "Hyperion curl" 
stuck to him and became the staples of the cartoonists. Mutual 
friends endeavored to bring about a meeting and reconcilia- 
tion in the campaign of 1884, but in reply to the request that 
he should make one speech for Blaine, who was the Republican 
candidate, Conkling replied, with diabolical sarcasm, that he 
had given up criminal practice. 

Froude, in his "Life of Caesar," says that the quarrels of 
political leaders have always given direction to the current 
of historv. 



358 John James Ingalls. 

Conkling 's implacable hatred defeated the nomination of 
Blaine in 1876, and his election in 1887. Indirectly it caused 
the death of Garfield, and prevented the renomination of 
Arthur, whom he described as "the prize ox in American 
politics." 

The chief actors in this stupendous drama have all crossed 
the frontier of the dark kingdom. After life's fitful fever, 
they sleep well or ill ; but whether well or ill, they sleep. They 
played mightv parts. They appealed to the passions of a ma- 
jestic audience. The curtain has fallen; the lights are out; 
the orchestra has gone ; and upon another stage we have the 
continuous performance, vaudeville and marionettes. 



II. 
Lamar and Hoar. 



Pohtical passion in the United States culminated in the 
Presidential campaign of 1876-77. The fatal blunders of 
Reconstruction left the South like a pyramid poised on its 
apex instead of its base. The unstable fabric, supported by 
sword and bayonet, stood for a while, and, when these were 
withdrawn, fell in a crash of blood and flame that came near 
engulfing our whole system in the vortex of its own destruction. 

The whites of the South, organizing into White Leagues 
and Ku-Klux Klans, overthrew the State governments set up by 
negro majorities and their Northern allies, and sent the civil 
and military leaders of the Confederacy to the Senate and 
House of Representatives. 

The exasperation of the Republicans of the North was 
intensified bv the consciousness that they had "nursed the 



Famous Feuds. 35^ 

pinion that impelled the steel," and it seemed for a time as if 
a renewal of civil strife were inevitable. 

Collision between the partisans of Hayes and Tilden was 
averted by the invention of the Electoral Commission, a con- 
trivance supported by each party in the hope of cheating the 
other, and which ended in defrauding both; but the rancor 
and asperity of debate did not subside until the inauguration 
of Garfield in the year 1881. 

Prominent among the Southern Democrats in the Senate 
was Iv. Q. C. Lamar, of Mississippi. He had been a member 
of Congress before the war, and was an implacable Secessionist. 

Though not a soldier, his relations with the Confederacy 
were confidential and important. He apparently accepted 
the consequences of the surrender, and attempted the perplex- 
ing role of propitiating the North and retaining the confidence 
of the South. 

He pronounced a eulogy upon Charles Sumner, which 
caused his fidelity to the lost cause to be suspected at home, 
and therefore omitted no appropriate opportunity to reinstate 
himself by asserting his constancy to his original conviction, 
which he did faithfully. 

He had the singular fortune to be appointed by President 
Cleveland a Justice of the Supreme Court, without ever having 
tried a reported cause in any tribunal, and without having 
been admitted as an attorney to practice in the court of which 
he became a member. His career was unique in American 
politics. 

Mr. Lamar was not what Mrs. Partington called a "fluid 
speaker." His aspect was sombre and dejected. He usually 
seemed sunken in reverie and abstraction. He was absent- 
minded. He had no facility in off-hand, extemporaneous 



.360 John James Ingalls. 

debate. He was a dealer in oratorical shelf -goods. His venom 
was not secreted, but distilled. He prepared his retorts in 
advance, and waited for the occasion to use them. He employed 
fixed ammunition. His speeches, which were infrequent, were 
written out and committed to memory; but, having rich rhet- 
oric and dramatic energy in delivery, he was an exceedingly 
effective oi'ator. 

The Legislature of Mississippi censured and requested him 
to resign on account of his position on financial questions. At 
the next State convention, at Jackson, he made his defense, 
and one of his colleagues told me that Lamar came to his room 
in a hotel the preceding midnight for the benefit of his judg- 
ment, and, standing before this single auditor, for two hours 
rehearsed in a loud voice his entire address, tones, gestures, and 
all, without once referring to his manuscript, exactly as he deliv- 
ered it before the convention the following day. 



t)n the first of March, 1879, the bill granting ser\'ice pen- 
'sions to the surviving veterans of the Mexican War was being 
considered in the Senate. 

It was opposed by many Republicans on the ground that 
it would place on the roll ex-Confederate soldiers who had 
fought in the war with Mexico. 

Mr. Hoar, of Massachusetts, offered an amendment to the 
bill in the following words: "Provided further, that no pen- 
sion shall ever be paid under this act to Jefferson Davis, the 
late President of the so-called Confederacy." 

This precipitated a crisis. Every Southern senator arose 
in his place, one after the other, and said in substance that 
Jefferson Davis stood in the same position they stood in, and 



Famous Feuds. 361 

that every man in the South who beheved in secession stood 
in, and that if Jefferson Davis was a traitor, they were traitors. 

Senator Garland, of Arkansas, in the course of his eulogium, 

alluded to the courage which Jefferson Davis had exhibited on 

Mexican battlefields, to which Mr. Hoar meekly responded: 

'Two of the bravest officers in our Revolutionary War were 

Aaron Burr and Benedict Arnold." 

This was the red rag. Mr. Lamar, tremulous with indig- 
nation, sprang to his feet, and said: "It is with supreme 
reluctance that I rise to say a word on this subject. I must 
confess my surprise and regret that the Senator from Massa- 
chusetts should have wantonly, without provocation, flung this 
insult." 

Bang went the gavel. Senator Edmunds, of Vermont, was 
in the chair. He presided like a school -master. He said, 
with severe emphasis: "The Senator from Mississippi is out 
■of order. He cannot impute to any senator either wantonness 
or insult." 

Mr. Lamar stopped, looked inquiringly at the Chair, and 
sneeringly said: "I stand corrected. I suppose it is in per- 
fect order to insult certain other senators, but they cannot be 
characterized by those who received the blow." 

This made the breach worse, and the Chair, rising, called 
Lamar to order, and directed him to take his seat until the 
question of order was decided. 

Mr. Lamar shortly arose again, and said: "The obser\'a- 
tions of the Senator from Mississippi, in his own opinion, are 
not only in order, but perfectly and absolutely true," and 
thereupon appealed from the decision of the Chair. 

The Chair submitted the question to the Senate. His de- 
cision was overruled; whereupon Mr. Ednumds said: "The 



2,6:^ John James Ingalls. 

judgment of the Chair is reversed. The Senate decides that. 

* 

the words uttered by the Senator from Mississippi are in order^ 
and the Senator from Mississippi will now proceed." 

Mr. Lamar resumed, very slowly and deliberately, with na 
apparent agitation, and said: "Now, Mr. President, having 
been decided by my associates to have been in order in the 
language I used, I desire to say that if it is at all offensive or 
unacceptable to any member of this Senate, the language is. 
withdrawn ; for it is not my purpose to offend or stab the sen- 
sibilities of any of my associates on this floor. But what I 
meant by that remark was this: Jefferson Davis stands in pre- 
cisely the position that I stand in, that every Southern man 
who believed in the right of a State to secede stands in." 

Senator Hoar interrupted to explain that in making his 
motion for the amendment offered he had not thought that 
anyone stood in the same position as Mr. Davis. "I should 
not have moved," said he, "to except the gentleman from 
Mississippi from the pension-roll." 

Mr. Lamar replied by insisting that there was no difference. 
He defended Jefferson Davis from the charge of treason which 
had been urged in the debate, and said: "I sav this as a 
Union man this day. He [Mr. Hoar] intended to affix (I will 
not say that he intended, but the inevitable effect of it was to 
affix) upon this aged man, this man broken in fortune, suf- 
fering from bereavement, an epithet of odium, an imputation 
of moral turpitude. Sir, it required no courage to do that; it. 
required no magnanimity to do it; it required no courtesy.. 
It only required hate, bitter, malignant, sectional feeling, and 
a sense of personal impunity. The gentleman, I believe, takes, 
rank among Christian statesmen. He might have learned a. 
better lesson from the pages of heathen mythology." 



Famous Feuds. 363 

Here he paused a moment and appeared to hesitate. He 
leaned toward Senator Thurman, three seats away, and said, 
sotto voce, but loud enough to be heard over half the chamber : 
"What was the name of the man who was chained to the rock?'^ 

"Prometheus," was the reply, in a stage whisper. 

Of course the name was familiar, but this made it seem 
like a sudden inspiration of genius. 

He conchided : "When Prometheus was bound to the rock, 
it was not an eagle, it was a vulture, that buried his beak in 
the tortured vitals of the victim." 

During his eulogy and exculpation of Jefferson Davis the 
Northern senators sat in silence; the boldness of the perform- 
ance was paralvzing; such an emergency had not been an- 
ticipated. No one was ready. The passionate and excited 
spectators in the galleries wondered why no champion of the 
North took up the glove. 

Toward the close of the debate a note fluttered over the 
balustrade of the northeast gallery, and, wavering in the hot 
air, was caught in its descent by a page, who carried it to Sen- 
ator Chandler, of .Michigan, to whom it was addressed. It was 
written on a leaf torn from a memorandum-book, without sig- 
nature, and begging him in God 's name to say something for 
the Union soldiers and for the North. 

Chandler was a giant in stature, a politician of the prac- 
tical type, with a jaw of granite and the fibre of a walrus. He 
was destitute of sentiment, and spent no time in reverie. He 
was chairman of the Republican National Committee, and the 
author of that celebrated dispatch, "Hayes has 185 votes, and 
is elected." He was not an orator like Conkling or Lamar. 
His weapon was the butcher's cleaver, and not the rapier. 



364 John James Ingalls. 

• 

He was a rough-and-tumble fighter, who asked no odds and 
feared no foe. 

He read the anonymous note brought from the gallery. 
The black fury of his eyes blazed from the pallor of his face. 
At the first opportunity he obtained the floor, and delivered 
a tremendous Philippic against Jefferson Davis. It was evi- 
dently wholly impremeditated, and therefore the more effective. 

He said: "Mr. President, twenty-two years ago to-morrow, 
in the old hall of the Senate now occupied by the Supreme 
Court of the United States, I, in company with Mr. Jefferson 
Davis, stood up and swore before Almighty God that I would 
support the Constitution of the United States. Mr. Jefferson 
Davis came from the Cabinet of Franklin Pierce into the Sen- 
ate of the United States, and took the oath with me to be 
faithful to this Government. During four years I sat in this 
bodv with Mr. Jefferson Davis and saw the preparations going 
on from day to day for the overthrow of this Government. 
With treason in his heart and perjury upon his lips he took the 
oath to sustain the Government that he meant to overthrow. 

"Sir, there was method in that madness. He, in cooperation 
with other men from his section and in the Cabinet of Mr. 
Buchanan, made careful preparation for the event that was to 
follow. Your armies were scattered all over this broad land, 
where they could not be used in an emergency; your fleets 
were scattered wherever the winds blew and water was found 
to float them, where they could not be used to put down rebel- 
lion; your treasury was depleted until your bonds bearing 6 
per cent, principal and interest payable in coin, were offered 
for 88 cents on the dollar for current expenses, and no buyers. 
Preparations were carefully made. Your arms were sold un- 
diT an apparently innocent clause in an army bill providing 



Famous Feuds. 365 

that the Secretary of War might, at his discretion, sell such 
arms as he deemed it for the interest of the Government to sell. 
"Sir, eighteen years ago last nionth I sat in these halls and 
listened to Jefferson Davis delivering his farewell address, in- 
forming us what our constitutional duties to this Government 
were, and then he left and entered into the rebellion to over- 
throw the Government that he had sworn to support ! I re- 
mained here, sir, during the w^hole of that terrible rebellion. 
I saw our brave soldiers by thousands and hundreds of thou- 
sands, aye, I might say millions, pass through to the theatre of 
war, and I saw their shattered ranks return. I saw steamboat 
after steamboat and railroad train after railroad train arrive with 
the maimed and the wounded ; I was with my friend from Rhode 
Island [General Burnside] when he commanded the Army of 
the Potomac, and saw piles of legs and arms that made human- 
itv shudder ; I saw the widow and orphan in their homes, and 
heard the weeping and wailing of those who had lost their dear- 
est and their best. Mr. President, I little thought at that time 
I should live to hear in the Senate of the United States eulogies 
upon J^'erson Davis living — a living rebel eulogized on the floor 
of the Senate of the United States ! Sir, I am amazed to hear 
it, and I can tell the gentlemen on the other side that they lit- 
tle know the spirit of the North when they come here at this 
day and with bravado on their lips utter eulogies upon a man 
whom every man, woman, and child in the North believes to 
be a double-dved traitor to his Government." 



THE STORMY DAYS OF THE ELECTORAL 

COMMISSION. 



The men who made the Constitution and built up our polit- 
ical system, rhetorically known as the fathers, the framers, and 
the founders of the Republic, had little confidence in what Lin- 
coln called the plain, common people, and less faith in their 
capacity for self-government. 

Thev were aristocrats. They believed in the rule of the 
best, and not the rule of the most. 

They thought public affairs should be controlled by intelli- 
gence, and not by numbers. 

They wanted liberty regulated by laws enacted by the wise, 
interpreted by the learned, and administered by the strong. 
How far their distrust of universal suffrage as the foundation 
of the State was justified is shown by the fact that while reluc- 
tantly conceding to the popular vote the lower house of Con- 
gress, which has been seldom tainted with impurity, they cre- 
ated a Senate, to be chosen by Legislatures — a scheme so pro- 
Hfic in venality, intrigue, bribery, and corruption that it has 
become the scandal, the reproach, and the menace of repub- 
lican institutions. 

For the choice of a President and Vice-President they in- 
vented a plan by which the people were to have nothing to do 
with the selection of their Executive. 

It was so ingeniously clumsy and cumbersome, so defective 
in safeguards against the most obvious emergencies, so vague 



:,66 



Stormy Days of the Electoral Commission. 367 

in its definitions, so pregnant with dangers, that, even as im- 
mediately modified by the twelfth article of amendment to the 
Constitution, the marvel is that a catastrophe has been so 
long postponed. 

They provided for the appointment in each State, in such 
manner as the Legislatures might direct, of electors, to assemble 
on a stated day at their respective capitals, to ballot in secret 
session, without consultation with their associates or the con- 
stituency, for the persons best qualified in their judgment to 
serve as Chief Magistrate of the Nation and as President of the 
Senate for the next four years. 

The result of their deliberations being signed in triplicate, 
one certificate is sent by mail and one bv messenger to the 
President of the Senate, the third being retained against the 
contingency of loss or destruction. 

The second Tuesday in February these certificates are to 
be opened by the President of the Senate in the presence of 
the two houses of Congress, and "the votes shall then be 
counted," but by whom they shall be counted the Constitu- 
tion saith not. Whether the Vice-President and President of 
the Senate is a clerk, a custodian, or an umpire is unknown. 
Whether the joint convention of the two houses, in whose pres- 
ence the President of the Senate opens the certificates — and 
"the votes shall then be counted" — is an impotent pageant, or 
the political tribunal of the Nation, has never been determined. 
Whether the houses separately and the individual senators 
and representatives are curious spectators, or jurors, or judges, 
is an enigma, as it has been for a hundred years. 

First by the Congressional Caucus, and then by the National 
Nominating Convention, the people soon assumed the power 
of selecting the candidates for whom the Electoral Colleges 



368 JOHN James Ingalls. 

should vote, but ,the antiquated, bungling, obsolete machinery 
remains. Theoretically, the electors can vote for any persons 
they please for President and Vice-President. In 1897 every 
Bryan elector had the Constitutional right to vote for McKin- 
ley; every McKinley elector had the same right to vote for 
Bryan; all had the right to vote for Mr. Clark, of Montana, 
or Mr. Addicks, of Delaware — in either of which events the cer- 
tificates would be opened by the President of the Senate, and 
"the votes shall then be counted." There is no restraint but 
loyalty and the decrees of public opinion. 

Chancellor Kent, in his commentaries, says the President of 
the vSenate counts the votes and determines the result. It is 
certain that the first electoral votes were opened and counted, 
and George Washington was declared elected by John I/ing- 
don, a senator from the State of Xew Hampshire, who was 
chosen by the Senate as its President, for that sole purpose,, 
before the Government was organized. 

It is equally certain that had the President of the Senate' 
in February, 1877, opened the certificates, counted the votes, 
and declared Hayes and Wheeler elected President and Vice- 
President, by including the returns from Florida, Louisiana,. 
South Carolina, and Oregon among the others which were 
not disputed, the House of Representatives, being Democratic, 
would have at once proceeded to elect Tilden and Hendricks, 
voting by States. The result would have been two Presidents, 
each supported by his own party, each claiming title under 
the Constitution, a double inauguration, the Senate and House 
arrayed against each other, with the probability of armed col- 
lision, anarchy, and civil war. The election of 1876 was the 
subsiding ground-swell of the war. 



vStormv Days of the Electoral Commission. 369 

After the surrender, the South submitted for a while to 
emancipation, negro suffrage, civil rights enactments, and the 
other crude enormities of Reconstruction; but, organizing at 
length in \Miite Leagues and Ku-Klux Klans, overturned the 
unstable governments which the ignorance of the former slaves 
and the cupidity of political adventurers had reared upon the 
ruins of war. Wealth, intelligence, and education were dis- 
franchised. The social fabric, like a pvramid resting on its 
apex instead of its base, stood so long as it was supported by 
bayonets, and, when these were withdrawn, fell with a crash 
in blood and crime that startled the world with the horrors of 
its destruction. The Xorth. shocked and appalled bv wrongs 
and outrages which laws 'were unable either to prevent or 
to punish, and exasperated by the bewildering failure of the 
policy of Reconstruction either to protect the negro in his 
rights or to perpetuate his political power, saw with resent- 
ment State after State falling into Democratic control under 
the supremacy of the civil and military leaders of the Confed- 
eracy. Of the eleven seceding vStates, all save three — ^Florida, 
South Carolina, and Louisiana — were lost to the Republicans. 
These the Democrats hoped to carry for Tilden ; or, failing in 
this, so to corrupt the returns that their electoral votes could 
not be received and counted. 

The passions of the combatants were thus aroused to the 
pitch of frenzy. For the first time in sixteen years the Demo- 
crats felt the possibility of resuming national power. The 
Republicans infiamed the Northern States bv presenting the 
dangers of the "Solid South," insisting that the purpose was to 
obtain pavment for losses in the war, for the assumption of 
the Confederate debt, with compensation for the emancipated 
slaves. 



370 John James Ingalls. 

These charges made such an impression and were urged 
with such persistent vehemence that Mr. Hewitt, of New 
York, in an open letter called them to the attention of Mr. 
Tilden, who said, in his published reply, that should he be 
elected President, he should deem it his duty to veto every bill 
for the assumption or payment of any such debts, losses, dam- 
ages, or claims, which gave Republican][orators precisely the 
opportunity they desired, and was like an effort to put out a 
fire by pouring on' kerosene. 

Neither of the Presidential candidates inspired any personal 
enthusiasm among his followers 

Hayes was hopelessly prosaic and commonplace. He had 
been a reputable soldier, and was by profession a lawyer. He 
was the "dark horse" of the Cincinnati convention, rendered 
available because in a desperate emergency he had been chos- 
en Governor of Ohio. Pie had no vices, and the customary 
sort of rather tiresome and uninteresting virtues. His enemies 
accused him of sanctimony and hypocrisy, and of sometimes 
forgetting his promises ; but all good men have been slandered 
by their contemporaries. 

Tilden was a cadaverous, tallow-faced attorney, in feeble 
health, who,'_having raked together an immense fortune, nalii 
rally became a reformer in politics, and was elected Governor 
of New York. His methods were those of the mole, except 
that he left no external indications of the silent and tortuous 
windings of his subterranean pathway. He took personal 
management of his campaign with a few confidential clerks, 
and was accused of attempting to purchase the vote necessary 
to secure a majority of one in the Electoral College. The 
election took place November 7, and by midnight the general 
impression was that Tilden had been successful. Pie had 



Stormy Days of the Electoral Commission. 371 

carried Connecticut, New York, Indiana, and all the Southern 
States except Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana, and in 
those the result was uncertain, though early reports favored 
the Democrats, The next day the Republicans, many of them, 
practically gave up the fight and conceded the election of Til- 
den. The Republicans had the State officers and the return- 
ing boards in the disputed States, but they were mysteriously 
silent. The fortunes of Hayes seemed gloomy, dark, and des- 
perate indeed. 

Toward nightfall "Old ^ack" Chandler, the chairman of 
the National Republican Committee, sent out through the 
Associated Press, with no preface, nor arithmetic, nor index, 
his celebrated dispatch: "Hayes and Wheeler have 185 votes, 
and are elected." 

The Democrats went into hysterics, and the Republicans 
recovered their equanimity. 

What actually occurred in Florida, Louisiana, and South 
Carolina the dav of the election, and afterward, and who really 
received a majoritv of the votes cast, will never be known ; but 
the Hayes electors were certified by the returning boards in 
due time, and the certificates forwarded to the President of 
the Senate. Duplicate certificates from each vState were also 
sent in, showing the choice of Democratic electors and their 
votes for Tilden and Hendricks. 

The interval till the meeting of Congress in December was 
full of apprehension. The Democrats were violent in their de- 
nunciations, and threatened to have an army of occupation 
in Washington to superintend the counting of the electoral 
votes in February. 

Grant was President. When asked if he thought there 
would be any trouble, he replied: "No, I tliink not; but it 



372 JoHX James Ixgalls. 

has been one rule of my life to be always ready." Troops 
began to gather in the forts along the Potomac. Batteries of 
artillery came in from the West by rail and rumbled through 
the streets at night on their way to the .\rsenal and the Navy 
Yard. Groups of soldiers in bright new uniforms, but without 
arms, strolled to and fro on the Avenue— whether on duty or 
on furlough no (me appeared to know. Possibly (rrant was 
getting readv to have his successor, Hayes or Tilden, peaceably 
inaugurated and installed. 

Recognizing the extreme gravity of the crisis, the brevity 
of the time, the inlirmitv of the C(mstitution, and the tremen- 
dous dangers that threatened the peace, and possibly the ex- 
istence, of the Nation, soon after Congress assembled, a joint 
committee, consisting of seven members from each house, 
was appointed in prepare a bill to i)rovide for and regulate 
the counting of the voles for President and \'ice- President, 
and the decision of questions arising thereunder, for the term 
beginning March 4, 1S77. 

The Senate was Republican, and appointed Ivdmunds, I're- 
linghuvsen, Morton, Conkling, Thurman, Bayard, and Ransom. 

The House was Democratic, and appointed Payne, of Ohio ; 
Hunton, of Virginia ; Hewitt, of New York ; vSpringer, of Illi- 
nois; McCrarv, of Iowa; Hoar, of Massachusetts; and Willard, 
of Michigan : in the aggregate, seven Republicans and sev^en 
Democrats. 

Thev brought to their delicate and ditlicult task exalted 
patriotism, matured experience, and the highest intellectual 
powers. Edmunds, in his opening speech, said the dispute 
with which thev were to deal was probabl>- as great as ever 
existed in the world under the law. This statement was 
not sensational. Wars have been waged, kings beheaded, and 



Stormy Days of the Electoral Commission. 373 

dynasties overthrown in controversies far less momentous 
and complicated than that which now confronted the Ameri- 
can people. The legal questions involved were novel. There 
were no precedents. A contingency had risen for the first 
time in the history of the Nation, and is liable to rise again, 
for which the Constitution and the laws were, and still are, 
inadequate. 

But, untried and intricate as was the legal problem, this 
was trifling compared with the political predicament. 

The committee was not only to devise an unconstitutional 
measure that should be strictlv within constitutional limita- 
tions (which would not be hard, for that instrument is elas- 
tic and hospitable), but to invent a tribunal composed of 
partisans that should be non-partisan in operation ; propitiate 
the implacables ; preserve the prerogatives of the vSenate, and 
maintain the conflicting pretensions of the House ; secure the 
cooperation of those who contended that there was power to 
"go behind the returns," and those who asserted that the only 
question to be decided was which certificate was actuallv given 
by the authorities of the vState; and, most important of all, 
obtain the cordial support of both parties by holding out to 
each the hope of cheating the other. 

The committee deliberated a month, and on January i8th 
Senator Edmunds reported what is popularly known as the 
Electoral Commission Bill, Senator Morton being the only dis- 
senter. As a specimen of political funambulism, it will take 
rank among the highest achievements of the human mind. 

It provided, in substance, for the meeting of the two houses 
and the course of procedure; for the disposition of questions 
arising in respect to vStates from which but one set of certifi- 
cates had been received ; for the reference of questions arising 



374 John James Ingalls. 

in respect to States from which more than one certificate had 
been received, to a Conmiission consisting of five senators, 
five representatives, and five justices of the Supreme Court, 
the decision of majority to be final, unless rejected by con- 
current votes of both Houses, in which event their order should 
prevail ; and for the reservation of all legal and constitutional 
rights, if any, to test the questions of title in Ihe courts. 

Four of the Supreme Court justices were designated in the 
bill— those assigned to the I'irst, Third, Kighth, and Ninth 
Circuits; thev to select the fifth in such manner as they might 
decide. 

Edmunds, in commenting on this clause, declared with 
some grandiloquence that the choice of the four justices was 
geographical — one from New England, one from New^ York, 
one from the Northwest, and one from the Pacific. 

Morton sneeringly replied that they were selected on ac- 
count of their known previous political predilections, and that 
the reason whv the Democrats favored the hill was because 
they expected it would elect Tilden. 

Curiously enough, it did turn out that two of the justices, 
Clifford and Field, were Democrats, and two, Miller and Strong, 
Republicans; but probably Edmunds was not aware of this. 
At least, he did not mention it in his speech. So far, then, the 
Commission was equally divided in politics — seven Republi- 
cans, seven Democrats, with the fifteenth member in abeyance; 
the unknowm arbiter, the domesman of the Electoral College. 

The justices, being two and two, could not well ballot, and 
were too dignified to pull straws. It became to be under- 
stood that seniority of service would control, and their choice 
would fall on Justice David Davis, who was known to favor 
Tilden, so this non-partisan Commission would consist of eight 



Stormy Days of the Electorai, Commission. 375 

Democrats and seven Republicans. They joy of the Democ- 
racy was unconfined. They considered the bill the supreme 
eflfort of human wisdom, for whose praise every place was a 
temple and all seasons summer. 

The Republicans said little. They were taciturn and re- 
served. What they thought was never disclosed. But what 
happened was this: The term of General John A. Logan as 
senator from Illinois was about to expire. He was an active 
candidate for re-election. The Legislature was so nearly a tie 
between the Republicans and Democrats that five "independ- 
ents " held the balance of power. They supported Judge Davis, 
and, after several days of futile and barren balloting, the Dem- 
ocrats united with them and elected him as Logan's successor. 
Whereupon the Judge resigned from the Supreme bench to 
take his seat in the Senate March 4, 1877. 

The next ranking justice was Joseph P. Bradley, a Repub- 
lican, and favorable to the election of Hayes. Thus, by an 
incredible caprice of Fortune, a gamester's chance. Fate, shuf- 
fling the cards, dealt the last trump to the Republicans, and 
the Commission stood eight to seven for Hayes. 

Like the gentleman in Bret Harte's poem who was struck 
in the abdomen by a red-sandstone specimen and doubled up 
on the floor, the subsequent proceedings interested the Demo- 
crats no more. They denounced the bill as the climax of vil- 
lainy, and its authors as the supreme malefactors of history. 
Perhaps their emotions were best described by Judge Jeremiah 
Black, one of the counsel in the South Carolina case, who said 
in a speech to the Commission, apropos of nothing: "This 
Nation has got her great big foot in a trap. It is vain to strug- 
gle for her extrication. * * * * 



376 John James Ingalls. 

"Usually it is said, 'In vain the net is spread in the sight of 
any bird,' but this fowler set the net in the sight of the birds 
that went into it. It is largely our own fault that we were 
caught. * * * * At present you have us down and 
under your feet. Never had you a better right to rejoice. 
Well may you say: 'We have made a covenant with death, 
and with hell are we at agreement.' 

The bill passed the Senate 47 to 17 and the House 191 to 86, 
exactly as it came from the committee. It was approved bv 
President Grant. January 29th, with a special message, in which 
he characterized the measure as one tliat afforded "wise and 
constitutional means of escape from inmiinent peril to tlie 
institutions of the country." 

January 30th the vSenate chose Edmunds. Morton, Freling- 
huysen, Thurman, and Bayard, and tlie House. Payne, Hunton, 
Abbott, Hoar, and Garfield, as the Congressional members of 
the Commission. The same dav the four associate justices of 
the Supreme Court selected Justice Bradley as the fifth mem- 
ber, and the tribunal was complete. 

They assembled January 31st. at 11 a. .\i., in the vSupreme 
Court room at the Capitol, organized, appointed their staff. 
adopted rules, and. shortly before noon, I<Vbruarv ist, notified 
the Senate and House that they were ready to proceed to the 
performance of their duties. 

The President pro iempoic appointed .Mr. Allison, of Iowa, 
and Mr. Ingalls, of Kansas, tellers on the part of the Senate; 
and Speaker Randall appointed Mr. Cook, of Georgia, and Mr. 
Stone, of Missouri, tellers on the part of the House. 

On motion of Mr. Edmunds, at one o'clock the Senate 
huddled in careless, disorderly array out of its chamber, and 
marched by twos in straggling procession through the Rotunda, 



Stormy Days of the Electoral Commission-. 



.1/ / 



between ranks of curious and silent spectators, halting for an 
instant at the door of the Hall of Representatives. 

At the head of the column was the President pro /<»/., 
escorted bv the Sergeant-at-Arms, and followed bv the vener- 
able assistant doorkeeper, Isaac Bassett, carrying the electoral 
certificates in two square black-walnut boxes with brass han- 
dles on the covers, like a commercial traveler with his sample- 
cases going into the office of the leading hotel. One box con- 
tained the certificates sent bv messenger, the other, those sent 
by mail; about half a bushel of each. 

The House arose to receive the Senate, which took seats in 
the bodv of the hall upon the right of the presiding oflficer. 
The Speaker vacated the chair, which was taken by President 
Ferry. Randall, imperturbable and impassive, sat at his left. 
The Secretary of the Senate, the Clerk of the House, and the 
tellers sat at the Clerk's desk, the stenographers and other 
officials having tables in front and on either side of the plat- 
form. The galleries were packed. The silence was profound 
— an expectant hush, as when the curtain rises for the pro- 
logue at the first presentation of a great drama. 

The President of the Senate called the joint meeting to 
order, announced its object, and, with a new, sharp, long knife, 
the Sergeant-at-Arms had provided, proceeded to slit the en- 
velope containing the certificate of the State of Alabama re- 
ceived by messenger, which he handed to Senator Allison, 
who read it in full, giving ten votes to Tilden and Hendricks. 
Then he opened the envelope received by mail from the same 
State and handed it down to be read, when Senator Conkling 
somewhat impatiently suggested that it could hardl>- be nec- 
essary to read the duplicate in full, and that hereafter as one 
was read the other should be compared. 



378 John James Ingalls. 

The certificates were opened in alphabetical order, Ala- 
bama being followed by Arkansas, California, Colorado, and 
Delaware, to none of which were objections made, and the 
reading droned monotonously along till half-past two, when 
Florida was reached, the first of the disputed States from 
which triplicate returns had been received: one, from the 
Republican Governor and Secretary of State, certifying the 
choice of the Hayes electors; the second, from the Attorney- 
General, certifying that the returns showed the election of the 
Tilden electors; the third, by the Democratic Governor and 
Secretary of State chosen at the general election, certifying to 
proceedings under an act of the Legislature and the judgment 
of a State court in favor of the Tilden electors. An objection 
was also filed that one of the Hayes electors at the time of his 
appointment held an office of trust and profit under the United 
States, and was therefore ineligible. 

All the papers, exhibits, and certificates, with the objections 
signed by senators and representatives, were immediately 
transmitted to the Commission, which was in session, and the 
Senate withdrew to its chamber to wait for the decision, which 
was not reached till late in the evening of February 9th. 

The sessions of the Commission were held in the vaulted 
hall which the Senate left for its new chamber January 4, 1859; 
the historic room where Webster hurled the thunderbolts of 
his logic and eloquence at Hayne, and which resounded to the 
oratorical duels between Calhoun and Clay. 

In one of the upper corridors hangs a painting by Mrs. 
Fassett, perhaps of greater historic interest than artistic value, 
representing Mr. Evarts addressing the tribunal before an audi- 
ence that fills the room. The portraits include many of the 
most eminent personages, at the bar and in public life, of an 



Stormy Days of the Electoral Commission. 379 

epoch made illustrious by their achievements in oratory and 
statesmanship. 

The wisdom of having a strictly political capital, abso- 
lutely under the control of the Government, away from busi- 
ness, commercial, and industrial centers, was never more 
clearly demonstrated than during the pendency of these trans- 
actions. The revolutions, emeutes, and coups d'etat of France 
are due, more than to any other cause, to the location of the 
executive and legislative departments in Paris, surrounded by 
idle and frenzied mobs that invade and threaten and disturb, 
destroying independence and rendering tranquil deliberation 
and dispassionate judgment impossible. 

Had Congress and the Commission sat in Baltimore or 
New York, that month of national jeopardy, among raging 
multitude? of infuriated partisans with their parades and mass- 
meetings, and the demonstrations of demagogues, no prophet 
could have foretold what the end would be. 

Even in Washington, so somnolent and obsequious, where 
public opinion is subdued to what it works in, like the dyer's 
hand, it looked squall}- enough at times, especially toward 
the close. Probably Watterson's call for a hundred thousand 
"one-armed Kentuckians," as the wags travestied it, to super- 
intend the electoral count, was the rhapsody of an automatic 
rhetorician, but the town swarmed with disreputable and un- 
bidden guests, who haunted the Capitol, lounged in the lob- 
bies, sauntered through the grounds, and crowded the galleries 
of the House at every joint session. The police were rein- 
forced. Detectives in plain clothes and heavily armed were 
stationed among the spectators. A vague terror brooded in 
the air — the apprehension of an impending tragedy. 



380 John James Ingalls. 

As an illustration, rather amusing now, of the trepidations 
of the time, word came to Ferry one morning, either by anony- 
mous letter or through the report of a detective, that as the 
Senate passed through the Rotunda at noon on its way to the 
House, a gang of rufitians were to assault the head of the con- 
secrated column and in the confusion take the boxes contain- 
ing the certificates from Captain Bassett, carry them ofT, and 
destroy the returns not counted. It seemed feasible enough, 
and, if successful, would have prematurely closed the functions 
of the Commission and given the House the opportunity, cov- 
eted by the implacables, of electing Tilden President, voting 
by States as the Constitution provides when there is no choice 
by the electors. 

The hour of meeting was near at hand. The time for delib- 
eration was short. Ferry, who was naliirally somewhat of an 
alarmist, held a hurried consultation with his staff, and it was 
finally decided to empty the boxes secretly and take the returns 
over as personal assets. To Bassett this seemed little short 
of sacrilege, like rilling the Ark of the covenant. It was con- 
trary to the precedents of half a century. But I'\-rry decided 
that it was an emergency, and, as what is past help should be 
past grief, the boxes were unlocked and the returns stowed 
away in the breast pockets and side pockets and coat-tail pock- 
ets of the tellers and other officials, and Bassett marched witli 
his empty packing-cases at the head of the procession. 

Of course nothing happened. There was no assault. I im- 
agine none was contemplated. Some joker, no doubt, played 
on Ferry's credulity. The boxes were placed under the Clerk's 
desk in the House, the returns collected from their extempo- 
raneous receptacles and returned to proper custody, and the 
incident was closed. 



Stormy Days of the Electoral Commission-. 381 

The array of counsel has not in any forum been surpassed 
in learning and eloquence. Prominent among them were Jere- 
miah S. Black, Secretary of State and Attorney-General under 
Buchanan; Montgomery Blair, Lincoln's Postmaster-General; 
Matthew Carpenter, previously and afterwards senator from 
Wisconsin; William M. Evarts, Attorney-General in the Cab- 
inet of Andrew Johnson, and afterward Secretarv of State 
under Hayes ; George Hoadley, at one time Governor of Ohio ; 
Stanley Matthews, senator from Ohio and justice of the Su- 
preme Court ; Charles O 'Conor, perhaps the leader of the New 
York bar; Samuel Shellabarger, member of Congress from 
Ohio during the war; Lyman Trumbull, eighteen years sen- 
ator from Illinois ; and William C. Whitnev, afterwards Cleve- 
land's, Secretary of the Navy. Others scarcely less eminent 
pleaded briefs, and several senators and members of Con- 
gress participated in the arguments. 

vStripped of all superfluities, subtleties, and technicalities, 
the Republican contention was that the returns of the electoral 
votes, duly certified by the State authorities, were final and 
conclusive, and that neither Congress nor the Commission 
could receive evidence from any outside source, either that 
the electors were not chosen, or that others were, or that there 
had been fraud, forgery, violence, or other irregularities, either 
in the election, the canvassing board, or any proceedings sub- 
sequent thereto. 

The Democrats insisted upon the right to go behind the 
returns and prove that the Tilden, and not the Hayes, electors 
were chosen by the people, and that the certificates were forged 
and fraudulent. 

Whether Tilden or Hayes had the majority in Morida, 
Louisiana, or South Carolina is not capable of proof. It is 



382 John James Ingalls. 

doubtful if there has been an absohitely square and honest 
Presidential election since the time of George Washington. 
It is not likely there ever will be. There will always be buy- 
ing and selling and juggling and cheating, not sufficient in 
all cases, it may be, to change the result. Clay's supporters 
always believed he was defeated by frauds in Louisiana in 
1844. So, although the Electoral Commission was packed for 
Hayes, by destiny, and the result was as well known when 
they took the oath of office as when they adjourned sine die, 
yet the doctrine was sound. 

After the first test vote, I remember Morton came hobbling 
into the chamber on his canes and took his seat, which was 
just behind mine. I asked him how the Commission stood. 
"Oh!" he replied, with a grimace of savage satisfaction, 
"eight to seven, of course. That settles it." 

Though the Commission voted "eight to seven" in favor 
of the Hayes electors from Florida at its evening session, 
Friday, February 9, it was not till the joint meeting of Mon- 
day, the 12th, that the vote of the State was counted, after 
which the returns from Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kan- 
sas, and Kentucky were opened without objection. The cer- 
tificate from Louisiana was challenged, and the duplicates, 
with the objections from both sides, were read and presented 
at five o'clock p. m. to the Commission by Mr. Gorham, the 
Secretary of the Senate. They were counted eight days later, 
February 20th, with Maine, Maryland, and Massachusetts. Ob- 
jection was filed to one of the electors of Michigan the same 
day, but not sustained by either house, and that State was 
counted with Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, and Nebraska. 
An objection to the eligibility of one of the electors from 
Nevada was overruled by both houses, and the next day, 



Stormy Days of the Electoral Commission. 383 

February 21st, the full vote of Nevada was polled, followed by 
New Hampshire, New^ Jersey, New York, North Carolina, and 
Ohio. When the certificate from Oregon was opened, objec- 
tions were presented to the eligibilit}' of one of the electors, 
and the papers were sent to the Commission, which heard argu- 
ments till February 24th, when, the decision being in favor of the 
Haves electors, the full vote of the State was counted for Hayes. 
Thereupon objections were immediately made to a Pennsyl- 
vania elector, and both houses adjourned over till Monday, 
Februarv 26th. At this time Senator Thurraan resigned from 
the Commission on account of ill health, and Senator Keman, 
of New York, was chosen to fill the vacancy. 

Monday afternoon Pennsylvania was counted, and an ob- 
jection then filed to a Rhode Island elector, which was so 
transparently frivolous that it was rejected in both houses — 
whereupon the Democrats filibustered from 3:30 till 6, when 
Rhode Island was put in the Hayes list. This brought the 
poll to South Carolina, which was a storm-centre, and the 
duplicate returns and other papers at 6:30 p. m. went to the 
Commission, which then adjourned till the next day at ten. 
There were now but five days till the end of Grant's term. 

South Carolina was counted the evening of February 28th, 
followed by Tennessee and Texas, and, on objection to the 
eligibilitv of an elector from Vermont, both houses took a 
recess till 10 a. m., Thursday, March ist. 

As the end drew nearer the mutineers in the House of 
Representatives became rabid with rage. They defied the 
efforts of the presiding officer to preserve order. The\- inter- 
posed dilatory motions, and became violent in their efforts to 
delay the final count beyond the fourth of March. 



384 JoHx James Ingalls. 

Thursday, March ist, was spent from ten in tlic' mornings 
till nearh- midnight 1)\ llu- House in a parliamentary wrangle 
over an objection to the eligil)ility of the elector from \'er- 
mont, which the Senate had overruled the night before. 

The joint meeting resumed its sessions at eleven o'clock 
at night, and the vote of Vermont was counted, followed by 
Virginia and West Virginia, which were not disputed. This 
left onlv Wisconsin, and it was supposed the drearv, wretched 
conflict was ended ; but as soon as the certificate was opened, 
an objection was presented. The Senate returned to its cham- 
ber, and waited three hours for the House to decide that it 
should not. 

At four o'clock, I*>iday morning, March 2nd, the Senate 
shambled over to the House. The vote of Wisconsin was an- 
nounced; the count of the thirty-eight States was concluded. 
Teller Allison read the tally-sheet, and handed it up to vSen- 
tor Ferry, who said: "In announcing the final result of the 
electoral vote, the Chair trusts that all present, whether on the 
floor or in the galleries, will refrain from all demonstrations 
whatever; that nothing shall transpire on this occasion to 
mar the dignity and moderation which have characterized 
these proceedings, in the main so reputable to the American 
people and worthy of the respect of the world." He then 
read the state of the vote, and declared Hayes and Wheeler 
elected President and Vice-President for four years from March 

4. 1877- 

The jinale of the drama was neither dignified, impressive, 
nor inspiring. The light from the paneled ceiling fell though 
an atmosphere dim and murky with dust and smoke. The 
actors and the spectators were drowsy, frowsy, and dishev- 



Stormy Days of the Electoral Commission. 385 

eled. The hall was in squalid confusion and disorder, foul 
with the debris of a protracted session. 

That no incongruity might be wanting, some enthusiast 
had sent Ferry, for signing the final tranuscript, the tail-feather 
of an eagle from Lake Superior. This he had made into a 
quill pen, whose plume reached his shoulder as he was affix- 
ing his signature to the scroll. 

At ten minutes past four the gavel fell, the lights were 
turned out, and the curtain went down. There was but one 
day till the end of Grant's term ! 

The gray light of a bleak and bitter dawn was just visible 
on the great dome as I rode homeward through the silent and 
deserted streets of the sleeping city. 



THE MOUNTAINS. 



What an immortal fascination there is about mountains ! 
Their solemnity, their silence, the grandeur of their outlines, 
the unspeakable glory of their lofty crags and "snowy sum- 
mits old in story," and their splendid inutility! 

When you look upon the vague and troubled immensity 
of the ocean, you think of commerce and codfish and whales. 
When you contemplate the grassy waste of prairies, expanding 
to the skies, you think of wheat and corn and pigs and steers. 
But Pike's Peak and Sierra Blanca and Trenchery and Culebra 
and the Tetons are good for nothing except adoration and 
worship. Man does not profane their solitudes where the un- 
heard voices of the winds in the forests, of waters falling in the 
abyss, and the eagle's cry have no audience nor anniversary. 



385 



THE SEA. 



The ancients had a saying that those who cross the sea 
change their sky, but not their mind, — -"Qui trans mare cur- 
rent caelum ncn animam mutant." Xo man can escape from 
himself. The companionship is inseparable. 

But there is something more than change of locality in the 
isolation of a long ocean voyage. When the last dim headland 
disappears, and the continent vanishes in the deep, the separa- 
tion from the human race is complete. All the accustomed 
incidents and habits of daily life are suspended, and those who 
are assembled in that casual society might be the solitary sur- 
vivors of mankind. 

Wars and catastrophes and bereavements may shock the 
world, but here they are unheard and unknown. vSuns rise 
and* set and rise again, but the great ship makes no apparent 
progress. She remains the centre of an unchanging circumfer- 
ence. The vast and sombre monotony is unbroken. Above 
is the infinite abyss of the sky with its clouds and stars. Be- 
neath is the infinite abyss of the sea with its winds and waves. 
Sometimes the faint phantom of a sail appears above the vague 
fluctuating horizon and silently fades away, or a stain of smoke 
against the distant mist discloses the pathway of some remote 
and unknown tenant of the solitude. 

The moods of the sea are endless, but it has no compassion. 
It glitters in the sun, but its smile is cruel and relentless. It is 

387 



388 John James Ingalls. 

eager to devour. Its forces are destructive. Each instant 
is fraught with peril. Its agitation is incessant, and it lies in 
wait to engulf and destroy. Resisting every effort to subdue 
its obstacles, when its baffled billows are cleft, they gather in 
the ghastly wake, and rage at their discomfiture. 

In the presence of this implacable enemy, whose smiles be- 
tray, whose voice is an imprecation, whose embrace is death, 
meditation becomes habitual and the mind changes like the 
sky. 



IDYL. 



(Written upon a visit to the old home upon the river bluff in Atchison.) 
Was it on this planet we lived alone, and loved in youth's 
enchanted kingdom amid the forests and by the great lonely 
river, looking with mingled gaze at the eastern bluffs purpled 
by the autumnal sunset, or at the face of the moon climbing 
with sad steps the midnight sky ; or was it on some remote star 
in some other life, recalled with rapture and longing unutterable 
and unavailing? 

"Oh, death in life; the days that are no more!" 
The crumbling excavation scarce discernible among the 
vines and weeds and brambles, deserted and inaccessible, 
ancient as Palmyra or Persepolis in seeming — was this the 
theatre whereon was enacted the intoxicating drama, the 
sweet tragedy of human passion, grief, joy, and endless sepa- 
ration? Since then, what devious wanderings of the soul, 
what darkened vistas, what trepidation, what struggle and 
solace, what achievements and defeat — what splendor and 
what gloom ! The river flows, and the landscape is unchanged. 
Nature mocks with her permanence the mutability of man ; 
and the steadfast presence recalling life's vanished glory and 
bloom and dew of morning — how worthless and empty appear 
all that time gives, compared with what it takes away! How 
gladly would we exchange the prizes of ambition and fame 
■and wealth for the splendid consecration of youth and— 

"Wild with all regret — the days that are no more." 

3S9 



EPIGRAMS. 



The burdens that afflict society are voluntary. 



Ideas are more profitable than hogs or beeves. 



The poor man's chance depends upon what the poor man 
has to sell. 



Trusts and labor unions are inseparable evils. They are 
twin relics of barbarism. 



The conscience of nations has been disturbed by the injus- 
tice bf modern society. 



As nations advance in intelligence and morals, gods are 
dethroned, codes modified, and creeds abandoned. 



A trust is a thing that knows no politics but plunder and 
no principles except spoliation of the human race. 



Socialism is the final refuge of those who have failed in 
the struggle for life. It is the prescription of those who were 
bom tired. 



The real difference in men is not want of opportunity, but 
in want of capacity to discern opportunity and power to take 

advantage of opportunity. 

390 



Epigrams. 391 

f The man who is unhappy when he is poor would be un- 
happy if he were rich. A beggar may be happier in his rags 
than a king in his purple. Happiness is an endowment, and 
not an acquisition. 



Inasmuch as both force and matter are infinite and inde- 
structible, and can be neither added to nor subtracted from,, 
it follows that in some form we have always existed, and that, 
we shall continue in some form to exist forever. 



WHiether in the battle to-morrow I shall sur\ave or not,, 
let it be said of me, that to the oppressed of every clime; to 
the Irishman suffering from the brutal acts of Great Britain, 
or to the slave in the bayou of the South, I have at all times 
and places been their advocate ; and to the soldier, his widow 
and orphans, I have been their protector and friend. 



The catfish aristocracy is pre-eminently the saloon-builder. 
Past generations and perished races of men have defied ob- 
livion by the enduring structures which pride, sorrow, and 
religion have reared to perpetuate the virtues of the living 
or the memories of the dead. Ghizeh has its pyramids; Petra 
its temples ; the Middle Ages their cathedrals ; Central America 
its ruins; but Pike and Posey have their saloons, where the 
patrician of the bottoms assembles with his peers. Gathered 
roimd a dusty stove choked with soggy driftwood, he drinks 
sod com from a tin cup, plays/' old sledge" upon the head of an 
empty keg, and reels home at nightfall, yelling through the 
timber, to his squalid cabin. 



There was a profound truth in the declaration of Voltaire 
that if there were no god, it would be necessary to invent 



392 ^^ John James Ingalls. 

one. This was flippant and irreverent, perhaps, but true. God 
IS indispensable. Man perceives this, and the higher his de- 
A^elopment the more distinct is his perception. The popular- 
ity of Ingersoll and his school is not an indication of infidel- 
ity, but is rather the strongest evidence of the religious spirit 
•of the times, its receptivity, its eagerness for instruction, its 
hunger and its thirst for knowledge about what can never be 
known. No age has ever been so profoundly moved by the 
■consideration of the problems of the hereafter as this, and I 
have no doubt that in response to the search for eternal truth 
another Christ will come and another revelation be made. 



In the democracy of the dead all men at last are equal. 
There is neither rank nor station nor prerogative in the repub- 
lic of the grave. At this vital threshold the philosopher ceases 
t© be wise, and the song of the poet is silent. Dives casts off 
his purple, and Lazarus his rags; the poor man is rich as the 
richest, and the rich man as poor as the pauper. The creditor 
loses his usury, and the debtor is acquitted of his obligation. 
There the proud man surrenders his dignities, the politician 
his honors, the worldling his pleasures; the invalid needs no 
physician., and the laborer rests from his unrequited toil. 
Here at last is Nature's final decree in equity. The wrongs 
' of time are redressed, injustice is expiated, the irony of fate is 
refuted, the unequal distribution of wealth, honor, capacity, 
^pleasure, and opportunity, which makes life so cruel and inex- 
plicable a tragedy, ceases in the realm of death. The strongest 
there has no supremacy, and the weakest needs no defense. 
The mighty captain succumbs to the invincible adversary 
who disarms alike the victor and the vanquished. 



Epigrams. ^o^ 

The purification of politics is an iridescent dream. Gov- 
-ernment is force. Politics is a battle for supremacy. Par- 
ties are the armies. The Decalogue and the Golden Rule have 
no place in a political campaign. The object is success. To 
defeat the antagonist and expel the party in power is the 
purpose. The Republicans and Democrats are as irreconcil- 
ably opposed to each other as were Grant and Lee in the 
Wilderness. They use ballots instead of guns, but the strug- 
gle is as unrelenting and desperate and the result sought for 
the same. In war it is lawful to deceive the adversary, to 
hire Hessians, to purchase mercenaries, to mutilate, to destrov. 
The commander who lost the battle through the activity of 
his moral nature would be the derision and jest of historv. 
This modern cant about the corruption of politics is fatiguing 
in the extreme. It proceeds from tea-custard and syllabub 
dilettanteism and frivolous sentimentalism. 



Lying in the sunshine among the buttercups and the dan- 
elions of May, scarcely higher in intelligence than the mi- 
nute tenants of that mimic wilderness, our earliest recollec- 
tions are of grass; and when the fitful fever is ended, and 
the foolish wrangle of the market and forum is closed, grass 
heals over the scar which our descent into the bosom of the 
earth has made, and the carpet of the infant becomes the 
blanket of the dead. Grass is the forgiveness of Nature — her 
constant benediction. Fields trampled with battle, saturated 
with blood, torn with the ruts of cannon, grow green again 
with grass, and carnage is forgotten. Streets abandoned by 
traffic become grass-grown like rural lanes and are obliterated. 
Forests decay, harvests perish, flowers vanish, but grass is im- 
mortal. Beleaguered by the sullen hosts of winter, it with- 



394 John James Ingalls. 

draws into the impregnable fortress of its subterranean vitality, 
and emerges upon the first solicitation of spring. Sown by 
the winds, by the wandering birds, propagated by the subtle 
agriculture of the elements which are its ministers and serv'ants, 
it softens the rude outline of the world. It bears no blazonry 
of bloom to charm the senses with fragrance or splendor, but 
its homely hue is more enchanting than the lily or the rose. 
It yields no fruit in earth or air, and yet, should its harvest fail 
for a single year, famine would depopulate the world. 



GARFIELD: THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE. 



The Springs of His Success. 

In his remarkable treatise upon the influence of "Ameri- 
can Institutions," M. de Tocqueville observes that the natural 
propensity of democracies is to reject the most eminent citi- 
zens as rulers ; not from hatred of superiority, nor fear of dis- 
tinguished talents, but because the passion for equality de- 
mands the award of approbation to those alone who have risen 
by popular support. 

This was written nearly three-quarters of a century ago, 
and the tendency, so perceptible to the philosopher then, has 
increased with accelerating force, till what seemed a vague but 
ingenious generalization is now recognized as one of the laws 
of our political system. 

George Washington, the first President of the Republic, was 
by birth and habit an aristocrat. He lived like a nobleman, 
upon a great inherited estate, in haughty and dignified seclu- 
sion, master of slaves, and possessor of the largest private for- 
tune in the United States. His journeys were like those of a 
royal personage. 

The descent from Washington to Jackson was rapid, and 
has been swifter since. It is quite inconceivable that any 
party to-dav would nominate as its candidate for the Presi- 
dency the richest man in the country, traveling en prince, and 

395 ♦ 



396 John James Ingalls. 

separated by insuperable barriers of rank and station from the 
the common people. 

Poverty may be a misfortune, uncomfortable and hard to 
endure ; but as an element of strength in public life it cannot 
be disregarded. 

The great leaders from i860 to 1870, the most momentous 
epoch in our history, were all of humble origin — Lincoln, Grant, 
Wilson, Morton, vSheridan, Andrew, Garrison, and the other chief 
figures of that period, without exception, had no heritage but 
an honest name. Wendell Phillips is the only conspicuous 
character of that time who was bom to wealth and culture — 
"with a silver spoon in his mouth." 

Crarfield emerged from an obscurity as profound as that of 
his fellows in fame, and reached an elevation as lofty, and it 
is perhaps not too much to say that he succeeded less in spite 
of his disadvantages than because of them. 

They were the wings wherewith he flew. The defects of 
his boyish training and scholarship, the narrow poverty of his 
vouth, the humble avocations of his early manhood, the mod- 
est simplicitv of his later life were favorable to his fortunes. 
They kept him at the level of the masses from whom he sprung, 
not alienated from them by extraordinary endowments, wealth, 
or special refinement, but exhibiting only a higher degree or 
more vigorous activity of the qualities and powers usual among 
men; industrv, patience, integrity; so that the great body of 
citizens in supporting him appeared to be indirectly paying 
tribute of respect to themselves, and not yielding either vol- 
untary or reluctant obedience to a superior. 

My personal acquaintance with Garfield began in Septem- 
ber, 1854, when we were students at Williams College. We 
were of kindred blood, being both descended, he on his moth- 



Garfield. 397 

er's side, from Edmund Ingalls, the founder of Lynn, in 1628. 

He came to Williams, with three companions, from an 
Ohio academy — Hiram, I think — and entered the Junior class. 
He was some years the older, but, his preparatory studies 
having been delayed by necessity, he was graduated a year 
later than I, in the class of 1856. Our relations were cor- 
dial and friendly, but not intimate. We were associates on 
the board of editors of the Williams Quarterly, a college maga- 
zine of some pretensions in those days, and in the lecture- 
room and chapel; on the campus and in the literary societies 
we met daily, in the unrestrained and sometimes hilarious 
familiarity of college intercourse. 

He immediately took high rank, but not the highest, in 
scholarship. He identified himself actively with the religious 
life of the college, but there was nothing of gloomy bigotry or 
monastic asceticism about his religion. He never held him- 
self aloof from the society of intelligent and vivacious sinners, 
while enjoying the fellowship and communion of the saints. 

Like most bright men, he wrote poetry, or what by courtesy 
was called such, and in one of our last interviews, w^hile re- 
calling some of the incidents of our college days, he alluded 
to his early indiscretions in blank verse, and jestingly said he 
never had anv serious apprehensions about the result of the 
Presidential campaign till some injudicious friend resuscitated 
from the Quarterly one of his metrical compositions and had 
it reprinted as an argument for his election. 

He was particularly active in debate and declamation, and 
gave promise of strong, but not brilliant, oratory. In casting 
his horoscope, the students predicted that he would be a 
teacher or a clergvman. No one dreamed that he would have 
a great political career. 



398 John James Ingalls. 

I recall with photographic distinctness his personal appear- 
ance on the occasion of his delivery of an oration in the old 
chapel at the close of his Junior year, in the summer of 1855, 
when he was twenty-four years of age. The garb of a country 
tailor lent no grace to his angular, bony, and muscular frame. 
His complexion was white and florid, with mirthful blue eyes. 
Yellow hair fell back from a brow of unusual height and prom- 
inence, and a sparse blond beard scarcely concealed the heavy 
jaw and the weak, sensuous mouth, whose peculiar protrusion 
was the most noticeable feature of his striking countenance, 
whether in speech or repose. 

I did not see him after my graduation until I entered the 
Senate in 1873. 

He had changed almost beyond recognition. He had be- 
come stout, heavy, and dusky, with a perceptible droop of 
the head and shoulders, as if bent with burdens. But the 
old cordial, effusive, affectionate manner remained ; a familiar, 
exuberant freedom that had none of the restraint and efface- 
ment which commonly characterizes the moods of the man 
who has mingled much with men. 

Indeed, to the very last it was apparent that Garfield was 
country-bom. There was an indefinable something in his 
voice, his dress, his walk, his ways, redolent of woods and 
fields rather than of drawing-rooms, diplomacy, statecraft, 
and crowded streets. There was a splendid rusticity in his 
simple nature which breathed unmistakably of the genera- 
tions of yeomen from whom he sprung. 

As an occasional visitor to the House of Representatives, 
I often heard him upon the floor. He was not a readv. off- 
hand, skillful debater. He was disconcerted by sharp and 
sudden attack. He was without capacity for retort and rep- 



Garfield. 3gg 

artee. He had no emergency-bag, but in the ability to deal 
with large subjects, after deliberation, with broad and com- 
prehensive strenth and candor, he was not excelled bv anv 
contemporary. He had a strong, penetrating voice, pitched 
in the middle key, with a slightly nasal and metallic quality, 
and an air of conviction which compelled respect. 

He told no stories and shot off no fireworks on the stump. 
His earlier speeches were highly rhetorical and pedantic; but 
he abandoned the pyrotechnic style, cultivated simplicitv, 
and became a master of the difficult art of clear, condensed 
statement of points and conclusions. 

There was no capacity in which Garfield was not surpassed 
by some of his associates. He wore the stars of a major- 
general, but his achievements as a soldier are forgotten. As 
an orator he was eclipsed by Conkling, and as a debater he 
was far outrun by Blaine. As a lawyer he will not be remem- 
bered. As a statesman his name is not imperishablv associ- 
ated with any great measure of national policv or internal 
reform. He had few of the qualities of successful political 
leadership, but in public estimation he is enshrined as the 
foremost man of his generation. 

Much of this sentiment, no doubt, is due to his tragic death, 
but the real secret of his hold upon the aft'ections of mankind 
has not yet been detected. 

Garfield was splendidly equipped and magnificently dis- 
qualified for executive functions. Had he lived, I suppose his 
administration would have been a disastrous failure. Fate, 
in one sense, was kind to him. He died at a good time for his 
fame. 

The combination of intellectual and executive power is 
rare among men. I do not recall in ancient or modern history 



400 John James Ingalls. 

one man illustrious as a legislator or renowned as an orator 
who has been equally distinguished for executive capacity. 
Possibly the reason may be that opportunity for both is sel- 
dom presented to the same person, but the main explanation 
undoubtedly is that the habits of mind required for oratory 
and for action in emergencies, in cabinets or on battle-fields, 
are essentially different, and in most natures incompatible. 
It is quite as difficult to conceive of Daniel W'ebster in com- 
mand at Appomattox as of Grant delivering the reply to Hayne. 
So it seemed to me that Garfield in giving up the Senate, to 
which he had just been chosen, and accepting the Presidency, 
invited his evil destiny. In that congenial forum to which 
he had so long aspired he might have long remaiiud, with 
increasing fame and honor, the foremost champion of those 
potential ideas which are revolutionizing the world. 

Sherman believes Garfield betrayed him at the Chicago 
convention, but I am sure that his nomination was entirely 
unexpected. He was in a way a fatalist, and believed he was 
destined to be President, but not then. 

A few weeks before the convention I was talking with a 
friend in the Senate restaurant about the situation. We had 
mentioned Garfield as a possible dark horse if Blaine's enemies 
made a deadlock, and just then he entered, and we called him 
to our table. We told him the subject of our conversation, 
and jocularlv tendered him the nomination. The talk that 
ensued took on a graver tone, but it left no doubt in my mind 
that, while he regarded the Presidency among the possibilities 
of his future, he did not consider it probable for many years 
to come. 

As I recall that interview, it seems incredible to remem- 



Garfield. 401 

her that within less than eighteen months from that hour he 
was nominated, elected, inaugurated, and slain! 

Indelibly inscribed in my recollection is the appearance of 
Garfield beneath the blaze of an electric light in the balcony 
of the Riggs House on the occasion of a serenade and reception 
tendered him after his return from the convention. 

He seemed to have reached the apex of human ambition. 
He was a representative in Congress. He was a senator-elect 
from his native State. He was a delegate to the convention 
that nominated him as the candidate of his party for the Pres- 
idency. Such an accumulation of honors had never before 
fallen upon an American citizen. A vast multitude thronged 
the intersecting streets, listening to his brief speech attentively 
and respectfully, but without enthusiasm. They were parti- 
sans of Blaine, of Grant, of Conkling, of Morton, of Sherman, 
and the passions of the gigantic contest had not yet subsided. 
The silence was ominous. Nemesis already stood, a menacing 
apparition, in the black shadows. 

I spoke to a friend, who stood near me in the hem of the 
audience, of the strange mutations of fortune the spectacle 
suggested to me, little thinking then of the yet more memo- 
rable vicissitudes so soon to follow ; the abrupt termination of 
those magnificent hopes and ambitions through the dark vista 
of the near future ; the sudden catastrophe of an exasperated 
destiny; premature death on the threshold of incomparable 
prophecy of greatness and renown. Could coming events cast 
their shadows before, he might have discerned those words of 
doom, the last that were ever traced by his^feeble and trembling 
hand — "Strangulatus pro repuhlica!" 

The administration of President Garfield began under the 
happiest auspices. It was a second Era of Good Feeling. 



402 John James Ingalls. 

Those were halcyon days. The lion and the lamb had lain 
down together. Mr. Garfield had not been identified with 
the internecine feuds and quarrels intestine which had rent 
his party asunder. He had made a treaty of amity, peace, 
and concord with Conkling and Grant. No Executive ever 
came into the possession of power with greater opportunities. 
The people were weary of schism, duels, and invective. Gar- 
field was exempt from these, and enjoyed the respect and cor- 
dial good-will of the people. 

American Presidents have not always been tlie highest 
types of manhood. Selected usually because they were avail- 
able, rather than because they were fit, they have inspired lit- 
tle enthusiasm except among those appointed to office. 

But here at last was an ideal occupant of the White House, 
for whom the dreamers had so long sighed in vain — a man who 
was a soldier, a statesman, an orator, a scholar, a gentleman, 
and a Christian ! 

His public career, while not free from error, had been, in 
the main, broad and satisfactory. I-Vom obscurity he had 
emerged bv the force of native genius and attained the loftiest 
elevation without losing his head and becoming either "bossy" 
or giddy. The people justly regarded him with contented 
pride as a signal illustration of the scope afforded by popular 
institutions for talents, industry, and ambition. 

His personal qualities were attractive, his presence impres- 
sive, and his address equally removed from familiarity and 
from reserve. 

His temperament was ardent and impulsive. He desired 
intensely to be written as one who loved his fellow-men. He 
was incapable of intrigue or hatred. He had no personal 
enemies. His long active parliamentary life had been with- 



GarfiKld. 403 

out rancor or bitterness. He had a large, broad brain, well 
furnished by study, and a genuine love for literature which 
survived his youth and was the best solace of laborious years. 
His impulses were high and generous. He intended to have 
pure public service, and to administer the government as a 
trust confided to him by Providence, and for whose exercise 
he was directly responsible to God. 

One of Garfield's first public acts after his inauguration 
was the reception, in the gathering gloom of the twilight of 
that dismal March day, in the East Room of the White House, 
of the venerable Mark Hopkins, former president of the col- 
lege, and a delegation of Williams alumni, to whose address 
of congratulation he made a most pathetic and feeling re- 
sponse, which seemed burdened with prophetic sadness, as if 
he already felt the solemn shadow of the disaster that was so 
soon to terminate his career. 

"For a quarter of a century," said he, "Doctor Hopkins 
has seemed to me a man apart from other men; like one 
standing on a mountain summit, embodying in himself much 
of the majesty of earth, and reflecting in his life something of 
the sunlight and glory of heaven." 

The Senate assembled in extraordinary session immediately 
after the inauguration, and thereafter I met him constantly 
in connection with public affairs till the adjournment in May. 
Conkling, exasperated by the selection of Blaine as Secretary 
of State, precipitated that tremendous battle which resulted 
in his own overthrow, the loss of New York, the defeat of 
Blaine four years later, and the election of Grover Cleveland. 

A very perceptible but indefinable change came over Gar- 
field. He lost his equanimity and became infirm of purpose. 
He was tortured by the importunate mob of place-hunters 



404 John James Ingalls. 

that surged through his reception chamber, as he said, 'like 
the volume of the Mississippi River." The weight of re- 
sponsibility oppressed him. The duties of the Chief Magis- 
trate were irksome. Durin his public life hitherto he had 
little to do with patronage, and now he could attend to little 
else. He disliked to say "no." Wanting to please everybody, 
he let "7 dare not wait upon I would." His love of justice im- 
pelled him to hear both sides, and his mind was so recep- 
tive that he felt the force of all arguments, and the last was 
the strongest. He hesitated to decide between hungry and 
angry contestants, so that, without being irresolute or vacil- 
lating, he seemed sometimes to halt and doubt, to the verge 
of timidity. 

His nature was so generous that he instinctively supported 
the vanquished, whether enemy[ or friend. He sympathized 
with the under dog. This trait in his character was strikingly 
exemplified while he lay on his death-bed, at the termination 
of the Senatorial conflict at Albany. He heard of the election 
of Miller and Lapham, and, though Garfield himself was the 
principal victim of the struggle, he said with great earnestness : 
"I am sorry for Conkling. I will give him anything he wants, 
or any appointment he may desire." 

Morally, he was invertebrate. He had no bony structure. 
He surrendered, unconsciously perhaps, to the powerful, ag- 
gressive, artful domination of Blaine, and became like clay 
in the hands of the potter. After the battle had raged for a 
time, a "Committee of Safety" was appointed by Republi- 
can senators, and a hollow truce was patched up. If certain 
things were done, Conkling amiably said he would go into the 
cloak-room and hold his nose while other nominations were 
confirmed, in order to break the deadlock. After consenting 



Garfield. 405 

to the compromise, Blaine or some other past master of diplo- 
macy convinced Garfield that it was an ignominious and dis- 
graceful back-down on his part. So, yielding first to the 
blandishments of the "half-breeds," and then to the threats 
of the "stalwarts," at last, in a moment of weak desperation, 
consulting no one, he withdrew the New York nominations 
in gross, made further compromise impossible, and the whole 
political fabric tumbled from turret to foundation-stone in 
irretrievable ruin. 



II. 

His lyiFE Drama. 

I left my home at Atchison, the evening of June 30, 1881, 
to deliver the annual commencement address at Williams 
College. 

President Garfield, the most distinguished graduate, was 
to be present, to celebrate with his classmates the twenty-fifth 
.anniversary of their graduation. 

Alighting from the train at Rochester, New York, Saturday 
morning, I heard with incredulity the rumor of his assassin- 
ation just as he was starting on his journey for the hills of 
Berkshire. 

The last time I saw him alive, just at the close of the special 
session of the Senate, he alluded to the pleasure with which 
he anticipated this visit, and to the grateful sympathy and 
help he had received from his college friends. Indeed, he always 
felt and manifested a peculiar interest in his alma mater and 
in President Hopkins, whom he regarded as the greatest and 
wisest instructor of the century. "A pine log," he said, "with 



4o6 John James Ingalls. 

the student at one end and Doctor Hopkins at the other, 
would be a liberal education." 

Garfield touched life at more points than most men. There 
was no company in which he could be wholly a stranger, nor 
any man, however low or however lofty, in whom he could not 
find something in common, so that he was never isolated nor 
detached from his associates at any stage of his pathway, 
from the rude hut of his nativity, in the clearing of the Ohio 
forest, to the fatal eminence from which he was borne to his 

grave. 

His imagination was very active. He was fond of poetry, 
music, sculpture, painting, the drama, and tlie classics. He 
believed in signs, omens, portents, and prodigies. He dwelt on 
coincidences and anniversaries, and during the pendency of 
the troubles that disturbed the early months of his adminis- 
rtation I heard him allude, half in jest and half in earnest, to 
the fact that his inauguration occurred on Friday, in explana- 
tion of the complexities of Fate. 

Being aware of this superstitious tendency, I was inter- 
ested to know if he felt any premonition of the calamity that 
was lying in wait for him the morning of his assassination. 
Meeting Mr. Blaine, at the funeral at Cleveland, with whom 
he rode to the Pennsylvania Station to take the train, I asked 
him if there was anything in the mood or conversation of the 
President, as they rode down the Avenue in his carriage, that 
indicated any shadowy apprehension of the tragedy that was 
so soon to culminate. 

On the contrary, Mr. Blaine said that during the twenty 
years of their acquaintance he had never seen the President 
exhibit such unrestrained exuberance of almost boyish happi- 
ness, such high animal spirits, as in that hour. His mother 



GarfiKld. 407 

and his wife had just convalesced. The storms that had 
darkened his political horizon had cleared. His enemies were 
baffled. He was to visit Williams and recall the splendid 
associations of youth. This was to be followed by a tour 
through New England, for which great preparations had been 
made. Then he intended to journey to Ohio and pass his sum- 
mer vacation at Mentor in the broad, free, natural life in the 
country home which he had so long labored to secure. His 
own health, which had been shaken by strain and stress, was 
established. His mind was full of great plans for future work. 
He intended to visit Yorktown and make an historical speech 
that should fitly commemorate the centennial of the Ameri- 
can Revolution. On the anniversary of Chickamauga he had 
planned to attend the reunion of his old army comrades. He 
had been invited to be present at the Cotton Exposition at 
Atlanta, where it was his purpose to deliver an oration that 
would be notable as a disclosure of his views on the race ques- 
tion and his intentions toward the South. He had spoken of 
all these things to Mr. Blaine, and was repeating some para- 
graphs he had already written for the speech at Atlanta, when 
the carriage stopped at the door above whose lintel was in- 
scribed for him, invisibly, the legend written over the gate of 
the Inferno: '" Lasciafe ogni speranza voi ch' entrate." 

A silver star let into the floor of the waiting-room long 
marked the spot where he fell. A tablet of marble in the 
opposite wall bore his name in letters of gold. 

Thither through all his wanderings his footsteps had tend- 
ed. This was his goal. "Every man," says Hugo, " is the 
centre of a circle whose fatal circumference he cannot pass. 
Within, he lives; beyond, he perishes." 



4o8 John James Ingalls. 

But as no public man, whatever his powers, can greatly 
•succeed unless identified with some idea, purpose, or convic- 
tion existing in the minds of the people, so in this respect 
Garfield was most fortunate. His life was a strenuous protest 
•against injustice. He was an apostle for liberty of conscience, 
-liberty of action, and liberty of thought. He had mastered 
the statistics and enlarged the boundaries of freedom. The 
public honor, faith, and credit were as valuable to him as his 
own, and he labored without ceasing that the creed of human 
rights should not be an empty formula, nor the brotherhood 
of man a mocking dream. 

Life abounds in tragic mysteries, and we are not authorized 
to ask a vindication of the decrees of Fate, but the termination 
of Garfield's career seems an insoluble problem. Adequate 
motive and intelligible object both are absent, and as if it had 
been determined that no element of horror should be wantine. 
there was the agony of prolonged dissolution, the incapacity 
and wrangles of blundering surgeons, the lying bulletins, the 
appalling revelations of the autopsy, the frightful distortion 
which compelled the premature seclusion of the remains, and 
as the crowning climax of atrocities, the revolting and blas- 
phemous ravings of the assassin, which made his trial for an 
unprovoked and brutal murder a most humiliating burlesque 
upon the administration of justice. 

Passing the city building in Washington one morning 
while the trial of Guiteau was on, I made my way into the 
crowded court-room by the courtesy of the Marshal. The 
execrable criminal interrupted the counsel and the witnesses 
at every sentence with foulest vituperation unrebuked, the 
greedy audience greeting with brutal laughter the volleys of 



Garfield. 409 

obscene and profane invective with which he assailed the 
prosecution and the defense. 

Such a revelation of mental and moral deformity has sel- 
dom been made. Not one good deed nor any generous impulse 
marred the harmonious and symmetrical infamy of the life 
of the wretched malefactor. He was insane as the tiger and 
the cobra are insane. He stands detached from mankind in 
eternal isolation as the one human being without a virtue, 
and without an apologist, a defender, or a friend. Even 
among the basest, he had no comrade. There was no society 
in which he would not be a stranger. He was the one felon 
whom no lawyer could protect, no jury acquit, for he was con- 
demned in that forum from whose verdict there is neither 
exculpation nor appeal. He must be an alien in hell. 

The world has no more conspicuous illustration of the 
truth that nothing is so unprofitable as wickedness. The 
thief robs himself. The adulterer pollutes himself. The mur- 
dere inflicts a deeper wound upon himself than that which 
kills his victim. Behind every criminal in the universe, 
silent but relentless stands, with uplifted blade, the shadow 
of vengeance and retribution. 

Happening to be in Washington on public business when 
the tragedy closed by the death of the President at Elberon, 
I was designated by the Vice-President as one of the Senate 
committee to receive the remains at the Capitol and attend 
the funeral at Cleveland. 

The procession reached the east door of the Rotunda just 
at the close of a bright, still September day. A military 
escort, with arms reversed and trailing banners, deployed 
upon the plaza. From the brazen tubes that were wont 
to blow martial sounds, reverberating along the marble col- 



4IO John James IngaUvS. 

onnades, floated the strains of "The vSweet Ry-and-By" and 
"Nearer, My God, to Thee," lost in the dim and glowing sky. 

The dead Commander-in-Chief was borne by soldiers np 
the stairway, past the very place where, six brief months be- 
fore, he had taken the oath of office, delivered his inaugural, 
and turned to kiss his wife and mother, amifl the hoarse sal- 
utations of thundering batteries and the tunuiltuous acclaim 
of an uncounted multitude. 

The bearers were followed into the Rotunda by Vice- 
President Arthur, the Cabinet, and the Committees, all other 
spectators being excluded. As the casket was placed upon 
the same catafalque that had borne the coflin of Lincoln the 
last rays of the setting sun streamed through the golden haze 
along the low horizon above the hills of Arlington and filled 
the upper portion of the dome, above the still unfinished fres- 
coes of Brumidi, with vanishing radiance, while the sombre 
shadows of twilight had already settled upon llie silent group 
below. 

The lid was laid back, and the official procession, led by 

Arthur, everv inch a king, arm in arm with Blaine, pallid and 

haggard, who looked as if, with Mark Anton)-, he might have 

said, 

" Bear with me! 
My heart is in the coffin there with Cssar, 
And I must pause till it come back to mc," 

marched slowly eastward, and departed. 

The desolating agony and torture of the hand-to-hand bat- 
tle with Death were depicted upon the wasted and distorted 
features of the martyr. 

One spectator, after looking an instant at the awful mask, 
sank groaning upon his knees, with his face in his hands, as if 
to shut out from his brain the image of ghastly horror. 



Garfield. ^u 

The unending file of visitors was then admitted, and, from 
Wednesday till Friday noon, hundreds of thousands passed 
silently between the guards, with mingled grief for the victim 
and execration for the murderer. 

The Rotunda was then cleared and closed, the vast floor 
covered with seats for the' final exercises, and at midday the 
widow and orphans passed alone into the great vaulted cham- 
ber, and. without attendants or witnesses, took their last fare- 
well of him who to them had been not ruler, or magistrate 
or hero, but husband, father, companion, and friend. 

History, it seems to me, contains no more dramatic inci- 
dent than that closing interview. The place, the occasion, 
the actors, the accessories, were in the last degree imposino- 
and pathetic, and will be a theme for the artist so long as the 
heart has passions and life has woes. And it was speciallv 
creditable to humanity that when it was announced that Mrs. 
Garfield and the family were in the Capitol, and desired to be 
alone for a brief space with the dead, the crowds that were 
struggling for admission and impatient at delay simultane- 
ously withdrew and disappeared, respecting her sorrow as if it 
had been their own. 

The scene later in the afternoon, in the Rotunda, at the 
closing ceremonies, was impressive beyond precedent. 

For the first time in the annals of national bereavement, 

formal solemnities were observed in the presence of a seated 

audience beneath the dome. 

For the moment dissensions seemed to have been allaved 

> 

and the chiefs of contending factions were reconciled in the 
presence of an unexampled calamity. All realized that Gar- 
field's death was the direct result of the infuriated passions 



412 John James Ingalls. 

of ambitious leaders fighting selfishly for the possession of 
power and the gratification of revenge. 

By the catafalque sat the new President, chief benefici- 
ary of Guiteau's bullet; recipient of the main prize in what 
Edmunds called the "lottery of assassination." He repre- 
sented the complete restoration arid ascendency of that fac- 
tion in his party that seemed to have been hopelessly de- 
feated at Chicago. Time's whirligig for him had revolved 
swiftly. Near by were the Cabinet ministers, their dreams of 
power, their plans of aggrandizement, about to be entombed 
with their dead chieftain. 

Across the space was Grant, his impassive, resolute, 
sphinx-like face bent forward, intently pensive, as though 
inwardly meditating upon the strange mutation by which the 
man who snatched from his grasp the coveted prize of a third 
nomination, so nearly won, now la}' in cold obstruction and 
everlasting silence, where ambition could no longer inspire 
nor glory thrill. 

Elbow to elbow with him was his successor, Hayes, weak- 
est of Presidents, whose indistinguishable term already seemed 
like a hiatus in history. Farther on were Sherman the soldier 
and Sherman the Senator, whose candidacy for the Presidency 
Garfield had been chosen as the delegate to present and espouse, 
and Sheridan, the victor of Winchester, and a great host of 
heroes and statesmen such as had seldom assembled around 
the unconscious dust of an American citizen. 

As evening fell the remains were taken to the waiting car 
with militar}^ and civic escort, the strains of triumphal music, 
the accent of minute-guns, for their last journey. Draped in 
black, the train moved westward through the night. At ev- 
ery station and along the line were reverent throngs of mourn- 



Garfield. 413 

ers. Upon one platform I recall a long file of men, the mem- 
bers of a Grand Army post, upon their knees with uncovered 
heads, as the train passed by. 

During the night the blaze of bonfires at road crossings 
disclosed groups of watchers in cabin doors and windows and 
on the adjacent hills. 

In the gray twilight of morning the bells of Pittsburgh tolled 
continuously with sullen clangor as we slowly moved through 
the sombre city. 

Arriving at Cleveland about noon, the casket was trans- 
ferred to a stately pavilion in an open space in the midst of the 
town, where it remained till Monday, illuminated at night by 
the blaze of electric lights, and guarded by his companions-in- 
arms, who stood like sleepless sentinels at the outposts of death. 

The pageant on the day of the burial was indescribable. 
The cessation of business, the dense blackness of the festoons 
of drapery, the stillness and awe of the spectators, the multi- 
tudes so immense that they became impersonal and conveyed 
only the idea of numbers, mass, and volume, like the leaves of 
a forest or the sands of the sea ; the lofty hearse with its twelve 
led horses completely caparisoned in black, with silver fringes 
sweeping the ground ; the dirges of bands and bells, all contrib- 
uted to a spectacle that can neither be described nor forgotten. 

But as if the malignant fate that had pursued him with 
such unrelenting and inexorable cruelty from the day of his 
elevation had not yet exhausted its fury, so that even in death 
he was to be denied the peaceful honors that are given to the 
humblest who die, long before the last resting-place by the 
lake was reached, a violent tempest of rain and wind burst 
suddenly from the sky, before whose ungovernable rage the 
procession dispersed and the multitudes vanished, so that the 



414 John James Ingalls. 

closing rites were hastily solemnized in the presence of a few 
witnesses, in darkness, gloom, and desolation. 

And so closed the tragedy whose incidents for eighty days 
three hundred millions of the human race had watched with 
sleepless solicitude, and for whose stay an uninterrupted appeal 
of unavailing prayers had besieged the throne of God ; a tragedy 
which taught, as it was never taught before, the vanity of fame, 
the emptiness of honor, the mutability of pride and ambition. 

The day before his death, after looking for a while in silence 
upon the sea, he said to his friend and classmate, Colonel 
Rockwell: "Do you think my name will have a place in 
history?" 

"Yes," was the reply, "a grand one; but a grander place 
in the hearts of the people. But you must not dwell on such 
thoughts. You have a great work yet to perform." 

After a brief pause, the sufferer whispered in accents almost 
inaudible: "No; my work is done." 

A few hours later the mournful prediction was fullllled. 
He exclaimed suddenly: "Oh, Swaim! that pain! that pain!" 
In another instant his eyes closed, and Garfield took his seat 
in the parliament of the skies. 



BLAINE'S LIFE TRAGEDY. 



I. 

In each individual of the fifteen hundred millions of the 
Tiuman race there is an indefinable something that eludes the 
photographer, that the painter cannot capture, nor the sculptor 
reproduce, and that no biographer can record. 

This subtle, evasive element, animula, vagula, blandula, is 
the Ego, the personality, that essence and quality which dif- 
ferentiates every man from his fellows and makes him what 

he is. 

Of this being there is no portrait nor any history. It exists 
only in the minds of others, as the beauty of the landscape is 
in the eye of the beholder; the eloquence of the oration, the 
spell of the song, the prosperity of the jest, in the ear of the 
hearer, and the charm of the woman beloved in the soul of her 
worshiper. 

The mirror cannot tell us the image we leave in the con- 
sciousness of others, nor can we communicate to them the 
impression they make upon our own. 

I remember the first time I saw General Grant— the evening 
before his second inauguration. I had seen innumerable pict- 
ures of him, and read countless sketches of his dimensions, 
bearing, features, and apparel, so that I had his clear delinea- 
tion in my mind. But the instant I held his hand, looked 
into his eyes and heard his voice, this disappeared like a dis- 

415 



4i6 John James Ingalls. 

solving view from the screen of a cosmorama, and was suc- 
ceeded by another which is imperishable, but which art can- 
not copy nor language portray. 

The secret of personal popularity, the power of exciting 
irrational and vehement devotion to its object, has never been 
detected. If it is not possessed, it cannot be acquired. It is 
an art for which there is no text-book nor any teacher. A man 
may well enough say he will be learned, upright, successful,, 
respected, a politician, or a diplomat, but not that he will be 
the idol of the people. This is beyond his acumen. The gift 
is rare. Its beneficiary seldom appears oftencr than once in 
a generation. It is quite independent of endowment and ca- 
pacity. Calhoun was a greater man than Clay, and Webster 
was intellectually far the superior of either; but Clay aroused 
in the masses of his party a passionate fer\^or of adoration that 
was like religious fanaticism in its intensity. 

When he was defeased, men wept with emotions of irrep-. 
arable personal sorrow and inconsolable bereavement. His 
speeches that have come down to us and the achievements of 
his career offer no solution of the mystery. It is as inexplic- 
able as the sway of Mary Filton, the dark, dwarfish maid-of- 
honor, whose faithlessness wrung from Shakespeare's tortured 
spirit the One Hundred and Twenty-ninth Sonnet, or the sur- 
render of Antony to Cleopatra, for whom the infatuated con- 
queror thought the world, with its thrones and triumphs, 
well lost. 

As in the case of Clay, posterity will be equally at a loss to 
comprehend the tremendous sovereignty and dominion of 
Blaine over the masses of the Republican party, and his con- 
temporaries in every party, with whom he came in personal 
touch and communication, for the last twenty years of his life. 



Blaine's Life Tragedy. 417 

There were giants in those days, warriors and statesmen, 
between whom and Blaine in service, capacity, and equipments 
there was no comparison. Other reputations may far surpass 
his in the annals of the Macaulay of our times, but in the power 
to move and stir and thrill, to inspire uncontrollable enthusi- 
asm, the name of Blaine, like that of Abou Ben Adhem, will 
lead all the rest. Other leaders were admired, loved, honored, 
revered, respected; but the sentiment for Blaine was delirium. 
The mention of his name in the convention was the signal 
for a cyclone. Applause was a paroxysm. His appearance 
in a campaign aroused frenzy that was like the madness of 
intoxication. 

In 1876 Blaine was in his perihelion. Barring the three 
great military chieftains, he was the foremost figure in the 
Republic. His orbit had hitherto been planetary rather than 
meteoric. His progress upward was gradual and orderly. 
His apprenticeship in the Maine Legislature gave him advan- 
tage in Congress, where he took his seat December 7, 1863. 
He spoke seldom, and did not at first impress himself very 
powerfully upon the House. He was studious, ready, and 
attentive, and in his second term came into prominence, 
largely by his altercation with Conkling in the case of Provost- 
Marshal General Frj^, a quarrel whose consequences cost him 
the Presidency, and ended only with his life. ^ 

He was chosen Speaker the day of Grant's first inaugura- 
tion, and served three terms with great distinction. He was 
an ideal presiding officer. He had the parliamentary instinct. 
His acquaintance with rules, practice, and precedents of pro- 
cedure was accurate. His memory of names, faces, and local- 
ities seemed automatic. His mental processes were exceed- 
ingly rapid and precise. His decisions of points of order in 



4i8 John James Ixgalls. 

debate were usually off-hand and very seldom reversed. His 
facility in counting a rising vote was phenomenal. Holding 
the head of the gavel, he swept the circuit of the House with 
the handle, announcing the result so promptly that it seemed 
like a feat of legerdemain. He explained that he segregated 
the members into blocks of ten. 

His relations with the House seemed intimate and per- 
sonal, rather than official, and he regarded himself as its min- 
ister, and not its master. 

The Forty-fourth Congress was Democratic, and March 3, 
1875, Blaine resumed his seat as Representative of the Third 
District of Maine. 

In January, 1876, the bill for general amnesty to all SoiUli 
emers was brought forward, and Blaine opposed the exten- 
sion to Jefferson Davis upon the ground that as Commanflcr- 
in-Chief of the Confederate armies he was directly responsible 
for the horrors and atrocities of Andersonville. 

The debate caused intense interest and excitement North 
and South, and through the efforts of Blaine and Garfield 
amnesty was defeated. 

Blaine said: "I except Jefferson Davis on the ground (hat 
he was the author, knowingly, deliberately, guiltily, and will- 
fully of the gigantic murders and crimes at Andersonville. 1 
have taken occasion to read some of the historic cruelties of 
the world. I have read over the details of those atrocious 
murders of the Duke of Alva in the Low Countries, which are 
always mentioned with a thrill of horror throughout Christen- 
dom. I have read the details of the massacre of Saint Bar- 
tholomew, that stands out in history as one of the atrocities 
beyond imagination. I have read anew the horrors untold 
and unimaginable of the Spanish Inquisition.^ And I here. 



BlxMne's Life Tragedy. 419 

before God, measuring my words, knowing their full extent 
and import, declare that neither the deeds of the Duke of Alva 
in the Low Countries, nor the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, 
nor the thumbscrews and engines of torture of the Spanish 
Inquisition, begin to compare in atrocity with the hideous 
crimes of Andersonville." 

The Southern Democracy never forgave this utterance. 

As the end of Grant's second term drew near the contest 
for the succession became animated. 

Conkling was the Administration candidate, and strangelv 
enough, as it seems in the light of events, he was the favorite 
of the gamblers and book-makers, and had "the hurrah" at 
Washington. Those best informed regarded Morton as the 
strongest candidate. He was aggressively radical, and relied 
largely upon the support of the vSouth, which sent delegates, 
but cast no votes. 

After the Andersonville debate, Blaine developed phenom- 
enal strength both in Xew England and the West. Many 
States hitherto supposed to be safe for other candidates trod 
on each other's heels in their eagerness to choose Blaine dele- 
gations. Earlv in April the managers of "the machine" saw 
with rage and consternation that Blaine would start with more 
votes than Morton and Conkling combined, and unless the 
movement in his favor was checked, he would stampede the 
convention. 

Back-firing is a favorite method of arresting the spread of 
a conflagration. It is not unknown in politics. 

Vague, intangible rumors affecting Blaine 's personal and of- 
ficial integrity were set afloat at Indianapolis and other places 
in the West, and repeated in New York. It was alleged in 
obscure journals catalogued as Republican that as Speaker of 



420 John James Ingalls. 

the House he had used his power, in favor of certain Western 
railroads, from which he had received vast sums in money, 
stock, and bonds as compensation. 

It was not difficult, after the Jeff Davis episode, to induce 
a Democratic House to appoint a committee to investigate 
these accusations ; but Blaine for the time baffled the conspir- 
ators by a personal statement on the floor April 24, 1876. 

On May 2d a resolution was introduced to investigate an 
alleged purchase by the Union Pacific Railway, at a price 
much greater than their actual value, of certain bonds of the 
Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad Company, of which it 
was whispered Blaine was the owner. 

He insisted upon prompt and immediate examination of 
the charges, but his enemies were in no hurry. They wanted 
the black cloud of distrust and suspicion to darken the splendor 
of his fame and cast its ominous shadow over the convention. 

It was an epoch of sensations. The country was startled 
one morning by the story that Mulligan, a confidential clerk 
of Blaine's Boston broker, had arrived in Washington with a 
bundle of Blaine's letters, purloined from the files, showing 
his relations with the railroad companies and conclusively 
establishing his guilt. 

Suddenly the announcement was made that Blaine, after 
offering to Mulligan a place in the foreign service, and threat- 
ening to commit suicide, had obtained possession of the let- 
ters by an act of bad faith, and that they would not appear in 
evidence. 

The whole transaction was mysterious, and it may as well 
be said here as elsewhere that its effect on Blaine was distinctly 
injurious. He never recovered from it. It left a stain, vague 
and faint, but indelible. 



Blaine's Life Tragedy. 421 

The correspondence, under the most charitable interpreta- 
tion, betrayed indiscretion, if no more, that came near the 
frontier of culpability. It furnished his enemies with ammu- 
nition to which his supporters interposed no armor save silence. 

But Blaine was fertile in resources and a born tragedian. 
Conscious that it would be fatal to rest vmder the imputation 
that he had secured the letters in order to stifle damaging dis- 
closures, he decided on a coup de theatre, rose Monday morning, 
June 5th to a question of privilege, and hurled defiance at his 
foes. 

He stood on a narrow neck of land. 

The convention at Cincinnati was to assemble one week 
from the following Wednesday. His friends were perturbed 
and restless. His rivals sneered. His enemies were noisily 
exultant. The Democratic majority was eager to convict. 
The stake was enormous. The situation was dramatic. He 
had the Nation for his audience. When he began, there was 
a silence deep as death, and the boldest held his breath for a 
while. 

Reciting the resolution, he briefly reviewed its objects and 
purposes and the methods of his accusers. He denied the power 
of the House to compel the production of his private corre- 
spondence, and particularly the letters purloined by Mulligan. 

He affirmed his readiness for any extremity of contest in 
defense of his sacred right, and then added, with immense 
emphasis: "And while I am so, I am not afraid to show the 
letters. Thank God Almighty, I am not ashamed to show 
them! There they are" — holding a packet at arm's length 
above his head. "There is the very original package. And 
with some sense of humiliation, with a mortification I do not 
attempt to conceal, with a sense of the outrage which I tliink 



42 2 John James Ingalls. 

any man in my position would feel, I invite the confidence of 
forty-four millions of my countrymen while I read those letters 
from this desk." 

They were not pleasant reading, but Blaine had a thunder- 
bolt in reserve. At the close, turning to the chairman of the 
committee having the investigation in charge, after a prelim- 
inary colloquy, Blaine said : 

"I tell the gentleman from Kentucky now, and I am pre- 
pared to state to this House, that at eight o 'clock last Thurs- 
day morning, or thereabouts, the gentleman from Kentucky 
received and receipted for a message addressed to him from 
Josiah Caldwell, in I^ondon, completely and absolutely exon- 
erating me from these accusations, and that he has sup- 
pressed it!" 

This put Proctor Knott in a hole. He could not deny that 
he had received a message, because he had incautiously shown 
it to a Democratic friend, who in some way conveyed the 
information to Blaine, and thus gave him the opportunity of 
turning the tables upon his adversaries by showing that their 
object was not justice, but political persecution. 

Knott claimed that this pretended cable was bogus, a fake 
made up this side of the Atlantic, and palmed off on the 
committee for this specific use. 

There was room for suspicion, but Blaine won. It was an 
unprecedented forensic triumph, although far enough from 
a moral vindication. The people like nerve, sand, and intre- 
pidity, and attach small importance to political indictments. 
Their sympathies go out to the man who fights against desper- 
ate odds and succeeds. 

There have been many turbulent and disorderly episodes 
in the House of Representatives, but no one who witnessed 



Blaine's Life Tragedy. 423 

this gladiatorial combat will ever forget the uproar, the un- 
controllable frenzy and tumultuous thunder of that historic 
day. Every one seemed to have eaten of the insane root that 
takes the reason prisoner. A yelling mob of trespassers broke 
past the guards and turned the floor into a bedlam. The 
crowded galleries howled with derision at the puny efforts of 
the Chair to enforce the rules and preserve order. It would 
have been as easy for Nero to keep silence in the Coliseum 
when the Christians were fed to the lions. 

The Sunday morning in Washington preceding the Cincin- 
nati convention was suffocatingly still, hot, and breathless. 

I was sitting by the window in my apartments at 14 11 H 
Street when Blaine, with his wife and Miss Dodge ("Gail Ham- 
ilton"), walked slowly eastward on their way to the Congre- 
gational Church at the corner of Tenth and G Streets. He 
was a little in advance of the ladies, and was sunken, ap- 
parently, in the profoundest reverie. He appeared heavily 
dressed for the oppressive day, and one hand was thrust in the 
breast of his closely buttoned frock coat. 

His head hung heavily forward, and his gaze seemed bent 
vacantlv on the ground at his feet. His countenance had a 
deadly pallor, and 1 was hardly surprised to hear a few moments 
afterward that he had fallen unconscious in the vestibule 
while entering the church, and had been taken home apparently 
dying. 

Later in the day I went around to his house. He was lying 
on a bed, partly undressed, and still unconscious. His eyes 
were fixed, and he breathed stertorously at laborious intervals. 
I never expected to see him alive again. 

The following Friday evening, going down Fourteenth 
Street after an earlv dinner with a friend on Highland Ter- 



424 John James Ingalls. 

race, I saw an immense throng reading the bulletins before 
the telegraph office on the Avenue. The announcement of 
Wheeler's nomination as Vice-President had just been chalked 
on the board, and was received with silence that could be felt. 

After a contest between such giants as Blaine, Morton, 
Conkling, and Bristow, the outcome of Hayes and Wheeler 
seemed disrespectful, and like an affront, as when the star per- 
formers in an opera are replaced b\- understudies, and the 
audience clamor around the box-office and want their moncv 
back. It was a most lame and impotent conclusion. The 
political mountain had been in labor and brought forth two 
mice. 

Suddenly the crowd turned simultaneously eastward with 
eager gestures. The air was dense with hats. Convulsive, 
volcanic cries and shoutings broke out, exulting and sympa- 
thetic, but with a tone of vengeance and rage penetrating the 
uproar, like the savage acclamation which welcomes the victim 
of injustice escaping from cruel oppressors. 

Looking for the cynosure of these neighboring eyes, I saw 
on the back seat of an open barouche, with Secretary Fish bv 
his side, slowly driving up the Avenue, Blaine, bareheaded, 
bowing his acknowledgments to the salutations of the multitude 
that dispersed as the carriage turned up Fifteenth Street and 
disappeared. It was like one risen from the dead. 

This sunstroke, or physical collapse, whatever it was, un- 
questionably had a depressing effect upon Blaine's prospects 
at Cincinnati. His rivals industriously spread the report that 
he was stricken with apoplexy, and even if the termination 
were not fatal, his bodily and mental faculties would be per- 
manently impaired. 



Blaine's Life Tragedy. 425 

Robust health, capacity to endure strain, tough fibre and, 
a placid temperament are indispensable requisites for a Pres- 
idential candidate. The White House is no place for a vale- 
tudinarian, a dyspeptic, or a nervous invalid. The importu- 
nate selfishness of place-hunters, the inconsiderate thought- 
lessness of village idols who wish to pay their respects, of vis- 
itors who desire to shake hands, added to the legitimate de- 
mands of senators, representatives, and officials, together with 
the requirements of public duties, would drive a weakling to 
Saint Elizabeth's or the grave. Like a lawyer, however bad 
his conscience may be, the President nmst have a good 
stomach. 

His friends spared no effort to counteract this unforeseen 
calamity. And their solicitude was partially allayed by this 
telegram, which he sent from his sick-chamber: 

" I am entirely convalescent. Suffering only from physical weakness. 
Impress upon my friends the great depth of gratitude I feel for the unpar- 
alleled steadfastness with which they have adhered to me in my liour 
of trial." 

The convention met Wednesday, June 14th. The next day 
the roll of States was called alphabetically for nominations. 

Connecticut presented Marshall Jewell, a majolica states- 
man in pumps and ruffles, with a porcelain smile, whom Grant 
had summarily dismissed from his Cabinet for disloyalty to 
his chief. 

Richard W. Thompson — born the same year as Lincoln, 
and a Whig member of Congress during the Presidency of 
John Tyler, the apostate — named Morton, of Indiana, the 
Danton of Republicanism; a sombre giant, paralyzed below 
his hips, whose physical disability prevented the opponents 
of Blaine from uniting on him as their candidate. 



426 John James Ingalls. 

Kentucky nominated Bristow, who had secretly conspired 
with the enemies of Grant, while Secretary of the Treasury 
under him, and became, therefore, the logical representative 
of the Superior Persons who advocate "sweetness and light" in 
politics. 

Robert G. Ingersoll, then of Illinois, presented Blaine as 
the "Plumed Knight," a ridiculous sobriquet, suggestive of the 
circus and the theatre, in a speech otherwise of remarkable 
power, which first gave the great agnostic national renown. 
Woodford, of New York, nominated Conkhng, whose desire 
for revenge knew no satiety. 

Ohio named Hayes, on whom the op[)onents ol Blaine 
united on the seventh ballot; and Pennsylvania nominated 
Hartranft as a "favorite son," to enable Cameron to throw 
the delegation to Bristow or Hayes, though Blaine received 
30 of the 58 at the end. 

Friday the convention proceeded to vote. Six ballots 
were taken, 378 being necessary for choice. Blaine led in 
each, his tally being 285, 296, 293, 292, 286, 308. In the sixth 
ballot Morton and Conkling were out. It was evident the sev- 
enth ballot would be decisive by a combination either on Bris- 
tow or Hayes. 

Blaine was sitting in the library of his house on Fifteenth 
Street in Washington at this hour. A telegraph instrument 
was on the table, with his secretary at the key. He was just 
recovering from the stroke that prostrated him Sunday morn- 
ing. As the details of the seventh ballot came in, State after 
State, the tension was extreme. Blaine alone seemed self- 
possessed and unmoved. 

Arkansas transferred her vote from Morton to Blaine. 
The Morton votes from Florida were also given to him. The 



Blaine's Life Tragedy. 427 

chances all seemed in Blaine's favor till Indiana was reached, 
when the chairman of the delegation withdrew the name of 
Morton and cast 25 votes for Hayes and 5 for Bristow. 
When Kentucky was called, Harlan withdrew the name of 
Bristow and cast 27 votes for Hayes, who was nominated, re- 
ceiving 384, to 351 for Blaine. 

Blaine made one suppressive exclamation of surprise, and 
immediately wrote this dispatch to Governor Hayes: 

"I offer you my sincerest congratulations on your nomination. It will 
be my highest pleasure as well as my first political duty to do the utmost 
in my power to promote your election The earliest moments of my 
returning and confirmed health will be devoted to securing vou as large 
a vote in Maine as she would have given for myself." 

He spoke in twelve States. His reception was that of a 
victor, but he showed great fatigue, and his health was unequal 
to the strain. 

In fact, Blaine was a hypochondriac. His life was a hand- 
to-hand contest with imaginary diseases, which is itself a dis- 
ease, due, perhaps, to some hereditary or pre-natal lesion, and 
hence obscure and fatal. In his speaking tours he soon grew 
hoarse and husky, and became depressed. 

His colleague, Hannibal Hamlin, the former Vice-President, 
told me there had never been a time since he had been 
acquainted with Blaine when, if three friends were to meet 
him one after the other in the morning, on his way down 
town, and greet him successively with the exclamation, "Why! 
what is the matter? How ill you look!" that, though feeling 
perfectly well when he started, he would not immediately 
return home, go to bed, and send for the doctor. This was 
no doubt humorous exaggeration, but it illustrated his mental 
attitude toward himself, which was one of brooding and fore- 
boding introspection. 



428 John James Ingalls. 

As early as 1867 he visited Europe, mainly to consult an 
eminent French physician at Paris about some symptoms that 
gave him alarm; but, after examination, the doctor laughed 
at him and gave him a prescription, at which every one else 
laughed when Blaine told the story. 

Soon after the convention (July 19, 1876), Blaine was ap- 
pointed United States senator vice Morrill, who became vSec- 
retary of the Treasury under Grant. When the Legislature 
met, he was elected for the unexpired term, and for the full 
term ending March 4, 1883. 

He was forty-six, and his powers were at their meridian. 
He was above the middle height, of large frame and heavy 
proportions, but extremely agile and alert in his carriage, 
with an erect and martial bearing. The deadly pallor of his 
complexion was framed in iron-gray hair and beard, always 
carefully trimmed. His large mouth was scl diagonally from 
left to right. His nose was heavy, bulbous, and pendulous; 
his eyes mirthful and inquisitive, with heavy lids drooping 
exteriorly, and bulging sacs beneath. 

His attire was always costly and in the mode, but not 
expressed in fancy. His voice, though neither rich nor well- 
modulated, had resonance and penetration. His manners were 
affable, familiar, and cordial, with dignified gravity enough on 
occasion. In conversation he was vivacious and good-humored 
rather than witty, with great fondness for clean jokes, apt anec- 
dotes, odd incidents and reminiscences, and pertinent illustra- 
tions. He was inclined to be noisy and boisterous if time 
served, with much laughter. He liked to "jolly" his intimates, 
but was domestic rather than convivial in his habits. 

His chief mistakes came from desire for monev, which he 
wanted not for himself, but for the power it brings. He was 



Blaine's Life Tragedy. 429 

liberal in his way of life, but not ostentatious, and his table 
was always spread for hospitality. 

He studied the arts of the politician assiduously : the recog- 
nition of unimportant men seldom seen, small personal atten- 
tions to rustics; and was a most inveterate advertiser. 

He had no fear of traditions, and took an active part in 
the business of the Senate from the first. He had a great 
nose for majorities, was a good guesser, and instinctively took 
the popular side of open questions. 

The Senate has always been controlled by lawyers, who 
are the aristocratic class in the United States, and Blaine was 
at a disadvantage because he did not belong to the profession. 
The law lords were disposed to disparage and flout him, but 
he was disrespectful to the verge of irreverence. 

"Does the Senator from Maine think I am an idjit [idiot]?" 
roared Thurman, in reply to an interrogatory Blaine put to 
him one day in the Pacific Railroad debate. 

"Well," bellowed Blaine, "that depends entirely on the 
answer you make to my question." Which gave "the merry 
ha-ha" to the old Roman. 

He spoke at length on silver, Chinese exclusion, the Elec- 
toral Commission, protection and the American marine, and 
troops at the polls. 

This paragraph is a good illustration of his methods in 
debate. Replying to the charge that soldiers were used to 
intimidate Southern Democratic voters, he said: 

"The entire South had 1,155 soldiers to overrun, oppress, 
and destroy the liberties of 1 5,000,000 people. In the Southern 
States there are 1,203 counties. If you distribute the soldiers, 
there is not quite one for each county. If you distribute them 
territorially, there is one for every 700 square miles of territory. 



430 John James Ingalls. 

So that if you make a territorial distribution, I would remind 
the honorable Senator from Delaware, if I saw him in his seat, 
that the quota for his State would be three: 'One ragged ser- 
geant and two abreast,' as the old song has it, is the force readv 
to destroy the liberties of Delaware." 

His speeches were like reading editorials rather than ora- 
tions. He spoke with extreme rapidity and violent gestures, 
but never slopped over. He was brilliant and interesting, 
but never sank into eloquence, as that word goes. 

Even his eulogy on Garfield, perhaps his most ambitious 
effort, reads like an essay rather than a panegyric. 

Without ascribing to Blaine the absence of convictions, it 
is not unjust to catalogue him as an opportunist. He was not 
so much a student as a specialist. 

He wrote little and read less, but devoured newspapers 
omnivorously. His intellectual efforts were what the doctors 
call pro re nata. 

But in running debate, which is like a duel with swords, 
Blaine was the Cyrano de Bergerac of his generation. Imper- 
turbable, versatile, confident, never disconcerted, at the last 
line he hit. 



II. 

Blaine and I were next-door neighbors in the vSenate, my 
desk being at his left, then Hamlin, and then Conkling in the 
last seat of the middle row east of the gangway. 

Blaine's conduct in the preliminary movements of the 
campaign of 1880 was mysterious and inexplicable. He re- 
mained the popular favorite, but his enemies were, if possi- 



Blaine's I^ife Tragedy. 431 

ble, more malignant and relentless than at any previous time 
in his career. 

Morton, his great competitor in the West in 1876, was dead; 
but Conkling, Sherman, Logan, Cameron, Edmunds, and others, 
while they had no love for one another, were still united by 
the common bond of hatred for Blaine, He was unmistakably 
the enthusiastic choice of nine out of ten Republicans, black 
and white, North and vSouth ; but the knowledge of his popu- 
larity only whetted the rage of his foes, and gave edge to their 
determination to spare nothing, foul or fair, for his destruction. 

These astute political veterans saw clearly that a crisis had 
come in which the ordinary regulation tactics would fail. 
Blaine, having no rival in the affections of his party, it be- 
came necessary, therefore, to discover or invent a competitor. 

It was not easy. 

Various "favorite sons" were brought forward, only to be 
received with indifference, disdain, or derision. General Sher- 
man was approached, but he refused peremptorily, almost con- 
temptuously, to permit his name to be used. 

There was one gigantic figure which had grown still more 
colossal in the interim since the decree of the Electoral Com- 
mission. General Grant's last term had been prolific in scan- 
dal that had nearly wrecked his party, but the people saw 
that rogues and knaves had imposed on the simplicity and 
inexperience of a generous nature, and the memory ol his 
errors was obliterated by gratitude for the vast services he had 
rendered the Republic. 

He was at this time in the Orient on his tour around the 
world, and as the nations through which he traveled rose up 
and stood uncovered while he passed by, the American people 
obtained a new conception of the grandeur of his achievements 



432 ' John James Ingalls. 

and the immortality of his fame. It seemed not so much the 
judgment of contemporaries as the verdict of posterity. 

But there was no popular desire to give him a third term. 
No emergency existed which rendered even his great qualities 
indispensable. The traditions and precedents of our history 
were against it. It was an innovation that verged on revolu- 
tion ; and yet, if Grant wanted it, many were willing that he 
should have it in further acknowledgment of the obligation 
that could never be fully acquitted. 

Whether General Grant was himself ambitious for another 
term, and aware of the movement in his favor, I never knew. 
My belief is that the opponents of Blaine, looking over the 
field, concluded that Grant was the only name with which 
they could conjure, and put him forward without his knowl- 
edge, trusting to the agitation and excitement of his return to 
the United States to make it appear that he was the popular 
choice and overwhelm all opposition. 

The New York papers, one day while the contest was 
raging, contained the account of Grant's reception in Siam. 
Conkling read to me with much dramatic efifect the General's 
reply to the King, and commented upon Grant's remarkable 
intellectual development in later years. 

As the occasion seemed opportune, I asked him whether 
Grant knew anything about the movement going on to put 
him in nomination for a third term. Conkling replied with 
much emphasis that he had never had a word of conversation 
or a line of correspondence with him on the subject, and that 
the movement, so far as he knew, was a spontaneous demand 
of the people. Logan said substantially the same thing. 

But notwithstanding this popular demand, Cameron, who 
was in absolute control of the Republican "machine" in Penn- 



Blaine's Life Tragedy. ' 433 

sylvania, had a convention called many weeks earlier than 
customary, and secured the election of a Grant delegation,, 
though the Republicans of that State were practically solid for 
Blaine. 

lyOgan did the same in Illinois, another Blaine State, in 
May. In the meantime, Sherman, who was Secretary of the 
Treasury, secured Ohio, and by his agents picked up many 
negro delegates from the Southern States; while Edmunds,, 
in New England, got Vermont and Massachusetts. 

I asked Blaine how he expected to win while his enemies 
were packing conventions and setting up hostile delegations 
in his territory. He did not appear to be disturbed, and 
thought the people would take care of the convention at last.. 

The day of the nomination (Tuesday, June 8th) the Sen- 
ate met at eleven, and considered the Calendar and the vSun- 
dry Civil Appropriation Bill, but the proceedings were languid 
and perfunctory. 

Blaine took part in the debate occasionally, but betrayed 
no agitation. The bulletins were brought into the chamber 
every few minutes, in duplicate, one for the Vice-President 
and the other for Blaine. To the groups that gathered around 
he exhibited no concern. He strolled in the intervals about 
the chamber and in and out of the corridors, chatting freely 
about the incidents of the convention brought over the wire.. 

Conkling's "Appomattox and its famous apple-tree," and 
his quotation from Raleigh, "The shallows murmur, but the 
deeps are dumb," were much approved. 

When the details of the thirty-fifth ballot were brought to 
his desk, between two and three p. m., he studied them atten- 
tively a moment, and then said: "Garfield will be nominated 
on the next ballot." 



434 John James Ixgalls. 

About four o'clock the announcement of Garfield's nomi- 
nation came. Blaine showed no emotion, and after a brief 
silence, said to me: "I did not expect the nomination. The 
combination was too strong for ni\- friends to overcome. But 
there is one thing I have done." 

"What is that?" I inquired. 

He answered: "I have put an end forever to the third- 
term idea in this country." 

Then he took part in the discussion of an item in the Appro- 
priation Bill concerning the census in Rhode Island. Sen- 
ator Beck, of Kentucky, good-naturedly twitted him with his 
defeat, which he thought had thrown him into ill humor; but 
Blaine took no notice of the gibe, and made no sign. 

Although he accepted Garfield's offer of the place in a 
characteristically gushing and indiscreet letter of December 
20, 18S0, Blaine was in doubt, or to his intimates professed to 
be, about the policy of entering the Cabinet as Secretary of 
State. The Senate was congenial to him, and he felt that his 
incumbency was for life if he so desired. 

Great as were the prerogatives of the premiership, it was 
a subordinate position, whose term must be brief and might 
be uncertain. He seemed to halt and hesitate to the end. 
Just before leaving the Senate Chamber for the last time, he 
looked around on the familiar scene and the familiar faces 
with an aspect of pathetic regret. "Well," he said, "good-bye; 
I am going; but I have arranged so that I can come back here 
whenever I want to." 

Blaine 's evil genius seemed for the moment to be placated. 
Though he had twice failed in his efforts to reach the Presi- 
dency, he had riches, honor, and power. 



Blaine's Life Tragedy. 435 

He was still young, as years count in great careers. Af- 
ter two terms in Garfield's Cabinet, which he anticipated, he 
might reasonably reckon on the succession, and he would 
then be but fifty-eight. vSo, facing eastward on Dupont Circle, 
he built a noble place, which was to be the scene of his 
stately triumphs, his diplomatic functions, and his political 
hospitalities. 

But Fate's truce was brief and hollow. Destiny, the mighty 
magician, sinister and sardonic, touched the trigger of the 
assassin's pistol, and throne, crown, and sceptre vanished as 
in the vision of Macbeth on the blasted heath. 

The nomination of Arthur was a sop to the forces led by 
Conkling to salve their humiliation at the defeat of Grant. 
It was a placebo to New York and the stalwarts. Even in "the 
stuff that dreams are made of," there was no thought that he 
would be President. But, by the legerdemain of doom, Guit- 
eau reinstated the vanquished. Blaine ceased to be an actor 
in the drama, and became a spectator again. 

The accession of Arthur gave that urbane and imperturb- 
able politician an opportunity to which he was not equal. 
He was meshed in complications he could not unravel. 

He trod the paths of his feet with marvelous circumspec- 
tion, but the labyrinth was too intricate, and he lost the clue. 
His personal bearing was princely and incomparable. His 
presence was majestic, and his manners were so engaging that 
no one left him after even the briefest interview without a 
sentiment of personal regard. 

Transferred suddenly from the arena of mimicipal poli- 
tics, where he was a most successful manager, he was brought 
face to face with an immense exigency to which parochial 



436 John James Ingalls. 

maxims were not applicable. He was not familiar with the 
strange stories of the death of kings. 

His motives were high, but he did not discern that the 
factions he sought to unite were irreconcilable. As the direct 
beneficiary of the heinous crime of an assassin, he was to some 
an object of suspicion, to others, of aversion. 

Garfield's Cabinet was an incongruous mosaic, hastily 
thrown together, incapable of cohesion, and certain to dis- 
integrate. Arthur could not peremptorily remove Garfield's 
ministers without arousing resentment ; but their relations soon 
became so strained that after a few weeks, to relieve the Pres- 
ident from further embarrassment, they resigned. 

In filling their places Arthur exhibited singular infirmity. 
Blaine was succeeded by the mild and inoffensive Freling- 
huysen. Lincoln, m loco parentis, was not disturbed. Alli- 
son, of Iowa, had declined two portfolios in Garfield's Cabinet, 
preferring to remain in the Senate, but, to save the honors for 
his constituency, persuaded his colleague. Governor Kirkwood, 
to take the position of Secretary of the Interior. He and Xaval 
Secretary Hunt remained a little longer than their associates, 
but were followed in April by Teller, of Colorado, and Chan- 
dler, of New Hampshire. 

James, Postmaster-General, a representative of the "bet- 
ter element" in New York, was succeeded by the amiable but 
obsolete Howe, of Wisconsin, who died two years later, and 
was followed by Gresham and Frank Hatton before the term 
ended. To the ofiice of Attorney-General came Benjamin H. 
Brewster, of Philadelphia, the frightful distortion and disfig- 
urement of whose features were forgotten in the grace of his 
manners and the charm of his conversation. 



Blaine's Life Tragedy. 437 

In the choice of these successors, had Arthur, while exas- 
perating Garfield's friends, propitiated Conkling, his course 
would have been explicable; but he alienated both. The 
defeat of Judge Folger, of New York (who succeeded Windom 
in the Treasury), as the Republican candidate for Governor 
of that State three years afterward, by Grover Cleveland, by 
200,000 majority, was the Cossack's answer. 

There was a Washington's birthday luncheon February 22, 
1884, at General McKec Dunn's, Lanier Place, Washington, 
just east of Capitol Park, at which the most amusing incident 
was the very obvious chagrin of a rural statesman who ap- 
peared in evening dress among a throng arrayed in morning 
costume. 

Blaine was one of the guests. I had not met him before 
during the winter. I was busy in the Senate, and he was 
occupied with his "Twenty Years in Congress," and with 
social afternoon recreations. 

I asked him how his Presidential canvass was going on. 

He said he had received above seven thousand letters from 
correspondents in every State, asking his wishes and plans 
and proffering help, to no one of which had he replied. 

He seemed to regard the outlook for Republican success as 
exceedingly dubious on account of the factions in New York 
and Ohio and the record of the party in Congress. He said 
he neither desired nor expected the nomination, adding, how- 
ever, with great emphasis and intensity: "But I don't intend 
that man in the White House shall have it!" 

Tune 6, 1884, on the fourth ballot and the fourth day of 
the convention at Chicago, Blaine was nominated by 541, to 
207 for Arthur, and 41 for Edmunds. 



438 John James Ingalls. 

The campaign that followed was the most feculent and 
loathsome in our records. It was a carnival of revolting 
filth and indecent defamation : the cloaca maxima of American 
politics. 

To his extraordinary power of attracting friends, Blaine 
added an inexhaustible capacity for making enemies. He 
had an indiscreet pugnacity, and could not resist the temp- 
tation to bump and thump and jolt an adversary, whether in 
his own party or on the other side. The Democrac)"- hated 
him for his attack on Davis and the South eight years before. 
Grant bore him no good-will. Conkling's vengeance was eter- 
nal. Arthur would have been more than human had he felt 
no resentment for Blaine's avowed hostility and contempt. 

The day of their revenge had come. His foes — and they 
were many among Republicans as well as among Democrats — 
adopted the apothegm of Beaumarchais : 

"Calumniate! Calumniate! Something will always stick." 

Caricature reinforced lampoon and pasquinade. The ter- 
rible "Tattooed Man." perhaps the most cruel and brutal, as 
it certainly was the most effective cartoon of our time, kept 
constantly before the people the vague assault upon his integ- 
rity, which was |one of the most formidable weapons of his 
opponents. 

He was abstemious in his habits, correct in his life, and a 
church member, but he never had the unreser\ed confidence 
of the moral element of the country. 

Conscious of the desperate malignity of the coalition 
against him, Blaine conducted his campaign with immense 
energy. Many Republican papers deserted him and openly 
supported Cleveland. Others were lukewarm, and carped 



Blaine's Life Tragedy. 439 

and sniveled, but he "flew an eagle's flight, bold and forth 
on." His health was precarious and the strain enormous. 

With a physician and a private car, he traveled Xorth 
and West, arousing prodigious enthusiasm, like a conqueror 
returning from battle. Hope elevated and joy brightened 
his crest. 

Had he remained on his tour as originally planned, it 
seems now he might have won ; but New York was doubtful, 
and its electoral vote would decide the result. A vast pro- 
cession of merchants and representative business men, march- 
ing with Cleveland banners many hours to the refrain, 

"Dear Mr. Fisher: Burn, burn, I)urn this letter!" 

terrified the Republican managers, who thought some counter- 
demonstration indispensable, and Blaine consented to attend 
a banquet October 29th. At ten o'clock the morning of that 
day a delegation of clergymen called on him at the Fiftq; 
Avenue Hotel with assurances of their sympathy and support. 
The spokesman was the Rev. Dr. Burchard, who said in the 
course of his improvised remarks: "We are Republicans, 
and don't propose to leave our party and identify ourselves 
with the party whose antecedents have been Rum, Roman- 
ism, and Rebellion!" 

How many votes this apt alliteration alienated will never 
be known ; but after several days of suspicious delay subse- 
quent to the election, the Democratic officials announced that 
Cleveland had carried the State by 1,047 votes. That they 
falsified the returns, gave Butler's vote to Cleveland, and stole 
the State from Blaine is beyond reasonable doubt. 

After his defeat, Blaine finished his "Twenty Years in Con- 
gress," and in 1887 went to Europe. He wrote from Paris, in 



440 John James Ingalls. 

November, to the chairman of the National Committee, that 
under no circumstances would he be a candidate again. 

His withdrawal turned the contest of 1888 into a free-for- 
all scrub race. Hawley, Gresham, Harrison. Allison, Alger, 
Depew, Sherman, Fitler, Rusk, Ingalls, Phelps, Lincoln, and 
McKinley received votes on the first ballot, June 28th, Sher- 
man being in the lead with 229. Blaine cabled from Edin- 
burgh, June 24th, requesting his friends to refrain from voting 
for him. 

Harrison was nominated and elected, and Blaine entered 
his Cabinet as Secretary of State, to complete the work inter- 
rupted by the death of Garfield. But his strength was not 
equal to the task. While in Italy the previous year, he had 
"been stricken with paralysis, and his physical and mental 
powers never regained their vigor. 

He became irregular in his attendance at the department, 
and performed its routine duties at his house, one of the 
famous mansions of Washington, shadowed by the memory 
of many tragedies. Its first occupant was Secretary Spencer, 
whose son was hanged at sea for mutiny. At its door Philip 
Barton Key was shot by General Sickles. In one of its upper 
chambers Secretary Seward was assaulted by Payne the night 
•of Lincoln's assassination, and nearly stabbed to death. Sec- 
retary Belknap was its next tenant, and death was his guest. 

When Blaine entered this abode in 1889, his three sons and 
three daughters were living. January 1.5, 1890, the eldest son. 
Walker, a young man of great promise, the prop and staff of 
his father, died. 

A little more than two weeks later, February 2d, the eldest 
daughter, wife of Colonel Coppinger, died under circumstances 
peculiarly tragic and distressing. June 18, 1892, his second 



Bi^AiNE's Life; Tragedy. 441 

son, Emmons, died in Chicago from exposure and over-exertion 
to secure his father 's nomination at Minneapolis. His sorrows 
came not as single spies, but in battalions. 

There was no cordiality between Harrison and Blaine. 
The Secretary had been a confirmed invalid since 1887, and 
was unable to bear the burdens of his great office. Much of 
the work of the Department of vState for which Blaine refused 
credit was performed by the President, who had refused, it 
was rumored, to appoint Walker Blaine First Assistant Sec- 
retary and to nominate Colonel Coppinger as brigadier- 
general over many seniors in the service. 

Blaine's friends characterized Harrison as a scorpion, and 
the situation became tense as the time for nominating his 
successor drew nigh. Harrison was a candidate for a second 
term, and Blaine stated publicly that he was not in the field. 
His declaration was superfluous, for it was an open secret that 
he was mortally ill and incapable of the fatigue and stress of 
a campaign. 

Suddenly yielding to what sinister suggestion, what evil 
importunity, can never be known, at the last moment, the 
afternoon of Saturday, June 4th, he resigned from the Cabinet. 

The convention at Minneapolis was to meet the following 
Tuesday, and Blaine's action "could only mean one thing": 
an open alliance with the enemies of the President. He imme- 
diately left Washington for Maine, tarrying at Young's Hotel 
in Boston to receive bulletins from the convention. 

On the fourth day, June loth, he was put in nomination by 
Senator Wolcott, of Colorado. 

The scene was indescribably pathetic. 

All knew he was at the threshold of eternity, but at the 
mention of his name the innumerable hosts broke into con- 



442 John James Ingalls. 

fused and volleyed thunders that for twenty-seven minutes 
seemed to shake the foundations of earth and sky. 

Like the chorus of an anthem, with measured solemnity, 
the galleries chanted, "Blaine! Blaine! James G. Blaine!" 
myriads of stamping feet keeping barbaric rhythm, while 
plumes and banners waved, and women with flags and scarfs 
filled the atmosphere with motion and color and light. 

It was the passing of Blaine. That gigantic demonstra- 
tion was at once a salutation and a requiem. The Republican 
party there took leave of their dying leader, and bade him an 
eternal farewell. 



KANSAS: 1541— 1891 



The other continents are convex, with an interior dome or 
range, from whose declivities the waters descend to the cir- 
cumference ; but North America is concave, having mountain 
systems parallel with its eastern and western coasts, whose 
principal streams fall into the Atlantic and the Pacific. 

Between the Appalachian and the Cordilleran regions a vast 
central valley, more than two thousand miles wide from rim to 
rim, extends with uniform contour from the tropics to the pole. 
The crest of this colossal cavity nearly coincides with the bound- 
ary between the Dominion and the United States, its northern 
part drained by the Mackenzie and Red rivers into the Arctic 
Ocean, and its southern, by the Mississippi and its six hundred 
tributaries, into the Gulf of Mexico. 

In a remote geological age this continental trough was the 
bed of an inland sea, whose billows broke upon the Allegha- 
nies and the Rocky Mountains— archipelagoes with precipitous 
islands rising abruptly from the desolate main. 

The subsiding ocean left enormous saline deposits, which, 
at varying depths, underlie much of its surface, and which later 
were succeeded by tropical forests and jungles, nurtured by 
heat and moisture, their carbon stratified in the coal measures 
of the interior, and beneath whose impervious shadows, after 
many centuries, wandered herds of gigantic monsters, their 
fossil remains yet found in the loess of the Solomon and the 

443 



444 JoHX James Ingalls. 

Smokv Hill. In a subsequent epoch, as the land became cooler 
bv radiation and firmer by drainage, the saurians were suc- 
ceeded bv ruminants, like the buffalo and the antelope, which 
pastured in myriads upon the succulent herbage, and followed 
the seasons in their endless migrations. 

Mysterious colonizations of strange races of men — the 
Aztecs, the Mound-builders, the Cave-dwellers — whose genesis 
is unknown, appeared upon the fertile plains and perished, 
leaving no traces of their wars and their religions, save the rude 
weapons that the plough exhumes from their ruined fortifica- 
tions, and the broken idols that irreverent science discovers 
in their sacrificial mounds. 

Upon the western acclivity of the basin, where its synclinal 
axis is intersected by its greater diameter, lies the State of 
Kansas — "Smoky Waters " ; so called from the blue and pensive 
haze which in autum.n dims the recesses of the forests, the hol- 
lows of the hills, and broods above the placid streams like a 
covenant of peace. It is quadrangular — save for the excision 
of its northeastern corner by the meanderings of the Missouri — 
200 miles wide by 400 miles long, and contains the geograph- 
ical centre of the territory of the United States. Its area of 
52,000,000 acres gradually ascends from an elevation of 900 
feet above tide-water to the altitude of 4,000 feet at its 
western boundary. It has a mean annual temperature of 53°, 
with a rainfall of 37 plus inches; an average of 30 thunder- 
storms, 198 days exempt from frost, and 136,839 miles of wind 
every year. This inclined plane is reticulated by innumerable 
arroyos, or dry runs, which collect the storm-waters, whose 
accumulations scour deepening channels in the friable soil as 
they creep sinuously eastward, forming by their union the 
Kaw (or Kansas) and Arkansas rivers. 



Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 445 

The confines of the valleys are the "bluffs," no higher than 
the general level of the land, worn into ravines and gulches by- 
frost and wind and rain, carving the limestone ledges into fan- 
tastic architecture, and depositing at their base an alluvion 
of inexhaustible fertility. Dense forests of elm, cottonwood, 
walnut, and sycamore, mantled with parasitic growths, clothe 
the cliffs and crags with verdure, and gradually encroach upon 
the "rolling prairies." The eye wanders with tranquil satis- 
faction and unalloyed delight over these fluctuating fields, 
treeless except along the margins of the indolent streams ; gor- 
geous in summer with the fugitive splendor of grass and flowers, 
in autumn billows of bronze, and in winter desolate with the 
melancholy glory of undulating snows. 

By imperceptible transition, the rolling prairies merge into 
the "Great Plains," plateaus elevated above the humid cur- 
rents of the atmosphere; rainless except for casual showers; 
presenting a sterile expanse, with vegetation repulsive and 
inedible; a level monotony broken at irregular intervals by 
detached knobs and isolated buttes. Above their vague and 
receding horizon forever broods a pathetic and mysterious 
solemnity, born of distance, silence, and solitude. 

The dawn of modern history broke upon Kansas three and 
a half centuries ago, when Marcos de Xaza, a Franciscan friar, 
returning from a missionary tour among the Pueblos, brought 
rumors of populous cities and mines richer than Golconda and 
Potosi in the undiscovered countr>- beyond the Sierra Madre. 
In 1 54 1, twenty years after the conquest of Mexico by Cortez, 
Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, under the orders of Mcndoza, 
Vicerov of India, with a little army of 300 vSpaniards and 800 
Mexicans, marched northward from Culiacan, then the limit of 
Spanish dominion, on an errand of discovery and spoliation. 



446 John James Ingalls. 

Crossing the mountains at the head of the Gila River, he reached 
the sources of the Del Norte, and continued northeasterly into 
the Mississippi ^''alley, descending from the plains to the prai- 
ries, crossing the present area of Kansas diagonally nearly to 
the fortieth degree of north latitude. 

At the farthest point reached in his explorations he erected 
a high cross of wood, with the inscription, "Franciso Vasqucz 
de Coronado, commander of an expedition, reached this place." 
He left some priests to establish missions among the Indians, 
but thev were soon slain. In his report to Mendoza, at Mexico, 
Coronado wrote: 

" The earth is the best possible for all kinds of productions of Spain. 
I found prunes, some of which were black, also excellent grapes and mul- 
berries. I crossed mighty plains and sandy heaths, smooth and weari- 
some, and bare of wood, and as full of crooked-back oxen as the mountain 
Serena in Spain is of sheep." 

Coronado was followed sixty years later by Don Juan de 
Onate, the conqueror of New Mexico, and in 1662 by Penalosa, 
then its Governor, who marched from Santa Fe, and was pro- 
foundly impressed by the agricultural resources of the country 
which he traversed. 

The desultory efforts of the Spaniards to subdue the sav- 
ages and acquire control of the territory continued for a cen- 
turv, when the French became their competitors, under the 
leadership of ^larquette, Joliet, Hennepin, Iberville, and La 
Salle, by whom formal possession of the Mississippi Valley was 
taken in 1682 for Louis XIV. By this monarch the whole 
province of Louisiana, including what is now called Kansas, 
with a monopoly of traffic with the Indian tribes, was granted 
in 1712 to Crozat, a wealthy merchant of Paris, who soon sur- 
rendered his patent, and its privileges were transferred to the 
Mississippi Company. Under their auspices the city of New 



Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 447 

Orleans was founded in 1718 by Bienville, who, in the following 
year, dispatched an expedition nnder the command of Colonel 
du Tissonet, who visited the Osages at their former location in 
Kansas, and crossed the prairies 120 miles to the villages of the 
Pawnees at the mouth of the Republican River, where Fort 
Riley now stands. He continued his march westward 200 
miles to the land of the Padoucahs, where he also set up a cross, 
with the arms of the French king, September 27, 17 19. 

In 1724 De Bourgmont explored northern Kansas, starting 
from the "Grand Detour," where the city of Atchison now 
stands. In 1762 Kansas, with the rest of the Louisiana Terri- 
tory, was ceded by France to Spain. In 1801 it was retroceded 
by Spain to France. On the 30th of April, 1803, it was sold 
by Napoleon, then First Consul, to the United States, Thomas 
Jefferson, President. This was the largest real-estate trans- 
action which occurred that year, being 756,961,280 acres for 
$27,267,62 1 , being at the rate of about 3A cents per acre. The 
Anglo-Saxon was at last in the ascendant. 

Attached in 1804 by act of Congress to the "Indian Ter- 
ritory," the following year to the "Territory of Louisiana," and 
in 18 12 to the "Territory of :\Iissouri," Kansas remained, after 
the admission of that State in 1820, detached, without local 
government or a name, until its permanent organization thirty- 
four years afterwards. 

This mysterious region, so far, so fascinating, the object of 
so much interest and desire, inaccessible except by long voy- 
ages on mighty rivers whose sources were unknown, or by 
weary journeys in slow caravans disappearing beyond the 
frontier, had for some unknown reason long been marked on 
the maps of explorers and described in the text of geographers 
as the "Great American Desert." 



448 John James Ingalls. 

Though for many centuries populous and martial Indian 
tribes, the aristocracy of the continent, making war their occu- 
pation and the chase their pastime, had, without husbandry, 
sustained their wild cavalry upon its harv^ests; though the 
Spanish adventurers had reported that "its earth was strong 
and black, well watered by brooks, streams, and rivers " ; though 
the French trappers and voyageurs had enriched the merchants 
of St. Louis, New Orleans, and Paris with its furs and peltries; 
though Lewis and Clarke had penetrated its solitudes and 
blazed a pathway to the Pacific ; though Pike had discovered 
the frowning peak indissolubly associated with his name : and 
Pursley and the traders of Santa Fe had traversed the prai- 
ries of the Arkansas and the mesas of the Pecos — yet, in pop- 
ular belief half a century ago the trans-Missouri plains were 
classed with the steppes of Tartary and the arid wastes of Gobi. 

The flight of the Mormons to Salt Lake in 1844, and the 
California exodus in 1849, following the trail which was suc- 
ceeded by the pony express, the overland stage-line, and the 
Union Pacific Railroad, familiarized thousands of travelers 
from all parts of the country with its enchanting landscape, its 
superb climate, and its unrivalled though unsuspected capaci- 
ties for agriculture and civilization. To them it was not a des- 
ert; it was an oasis, compared with which, in resources, fertil- 
ity, and possibilities of opulence, all the rest of the earth was 
Sahara. 

The surf of the advancing tide of population chafed rest- 
lessly against the barrier, realizing the truth of the majestic and 
impressive sentence of Tocqueville, written a quarter of a cen- 
tury before: 

" This gradual and continuous progress of the European race towards 
the Rocky Mountains has the solemnity of a providential event; it is Uke 
a deluge of men rising unabatedly, and daily driven onward by the hand 
of God." 



Kansas: 1541— 1891. 449 

The origin or genesis of States is usually obscure and legend- 
ary, with prehistoric periods from which they gradually emerge 
like coral islands from the deep. Shadowy and crepuscular 
inter\-als precede the day, in whose uncertain light men and 
events, distorted or exaggerated by tradition, become fabulous, 
like the gods and goddesses, the wars and heroes of antiquity. 
But Kansas has no mythology; its history has no twilight. 
The foundation-stones of the State were laid in the full blaze of 
the morning sun, with the world as interested spectators. Its 
architects were announced, their plans disclosed, and the work- 
men have reared its walls and crowned its dome without con- 
cealment of their objects, and with no attempt to disguise their 
satisfaction with the results. Nothing has been done furtively 
nor in a corner. 

The first bill for the organization of Kansas was presented 
by Senator Douglas in 1843, tmder the name of the Territory 
of Nebraska. The next, two years later, named it the Territory 
of Platte, and afterwards it was again twice called Nebraska. 

January 23, 1854, Senator Douglas reported as a substitute 
for his former measure the bill for the organization of the Ter- 
ritories of Kansas and Nebraska, which, after fierce and acri- 
monious debate, passed both houses of Congress, and was 
approved by President Pierce on the 30th of May. The east- 
ern, northern, and southern boundaries of Kansas were the 
same as now. Its western limit extended 673 miles, to the sum- 
mit of the Rocky Mountains, including more than half of the 
present area of Colorado, with its richest mines and its largest 
cities. 

Intense political excitement preceded and followed the re- 
peal of the Missouri Compromise, which gave the measure its 
chief political significance, and the conquest of Kansas was not 



450 John James Ingalls. 

the cause, but the occasion, of the conflict which ensued. The 
question of freedom or slavery in the Territory, and in the State 
to be, was important, it is true, but it was merely an incident 
in the tragedy, unsurpassed in the annals of our race, opening 
with the exchange of fourteen slaves for provisions by the 
Dutch man-of-war in the harbor of Jamestown in 1619, and 
whose prologue was pronounced by the guns that thundered 
their acclamations when the Confederate flag was lowered for 
the last time upon the field of Appomattox. 

The incipient commonwealth lay in the westward path of 
empire — the zone within which the great commanders, orators, 
philosophers, and prophets of the world have been born ; in 
which its Savior was crucified; in which its decisive battles 
were fought, its victories over man and nature won; the 
triumphs of humanity and civilization achieved. 

Had the formation of its domestic institutions alone been 
the stake, it would still have been compensative for the valor 
of heroes and the blood of martyrs. The diplomacy of great 
powers has often exhausted its devices upon more trivial pre- 
texts, and nations have been desolated with wars waged under 
Caesars and Napoleons for the subjugation of provinces of nar- 
rower bounds and inferior fertility. 

But there was a profound conviction, a premonition, among 
thoughtful men, that vastly more was involved ; that further 
postponement of the duel between the antagonistic forces in 
our political system was impossible; that the existence of the 
Union, the perpetuity of free institutions, and the success of the 
experiment of self-government depended upon the issue. 

The statesmen of the South, long accustomed to supremacy, 
liad beheld with angry apprehension the menacing increase of 
the "North in wealth and population ; the irresistible tendency 



Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 451 

of emigration to the intermontane regions of the West and the 
Northwest, already dedicated to freedom. With prophetic vis- 
ion they foresaw the admission of free States that would make 
the South a minority in the Senate, as it was already in the 
House, and hasten the destruction of the system of servile 
labor, upon which they wrongly believed their prosperity to 
depend. 

The conscience of the North apparently became dormant 
upon the subject of the immorality of slavery, when, ceasing 
to be profitable, it disappeared, by the operation of natural 
laws, from the valleys of the Merrimac, the Connecticut, and 
the Hudson. It seemed to have been lulled into an eternal 
sleep by the anodyne of the Missouri Compromise ; but it was 
roused into renewed activity when the repeal of that ordinance, 
supplemented by the Dred Scott decision, disclosed the inten- 
tions of the Southern leaders to maintain their ascendency by 
the extension of slavery over all the Territories of the Republic, 
a policv whose success threatened their political supremacy and 
their industrial independence. 

Events have shown that the magnitude and significance of 
the Kansas episode were not exaggerated. It was the prelude 
to a martial symphony, the preface to a volume whose jim's 
was not written until the downfall of slavery was recorded. 

It would be a congenial task, but the present scope and 
purpose neither require nor permit a detailed narrative of the 
tumultuous interval from the organization of the Territory 
to the admission of the State. Its history has been written 
by its partisans. Its actors have been portrayed by their 
foes or their worshippers. The contests waged by Atchison 
and Stringfellow against the Abolitionists, and by Brown and 
Montgomery against "the border ruffians"; the battles and 



452 John James Ingalls. 

murders and sudden deaths; the burning of houses and sack- 
ing of towns ; the proclamations, bulletins, and platforms ; the 
fraudulent elections and the dispersion of Legislattires — form a 
unique chapter in our annals that waits the impartial chron- 
icler. Neither side was blameless. Each was guilty of wrongs, 
begotten of the passions of the crisis, that culminated during 
the Rebellion in border forays, encounters, reprisals, and retali- 
ations, shocking to humanity, whose memory time cannot 
obliterate nor charity condone. 

In the preliminary movement for the occupation of the new 
Territory, the slavery propagandists had the advantage of 
proximity. They swarmed across the Missouri border, estab- 
lishing camps, taking possession of the polling-places, securing 
eligible sites for towns, and, by obstructing the navigation of 
the river, compelled the emigrants from the North to make a 
long, circuitous land journey through Iowa and Nebraska. 
They received reinforcements and contributions of money, 
stores, and arms from many Southern States, and elected 
the first Territorial delegate, J. W. Whitfield, who sat from 
September 20, 1854, till the adjournment of the Thirty-third 
Congress. 

By the census taken in February, 1855, the number of legal 
voters in the Territory was 2,905 ; but at the election of mem- 
bers of the first Legislature, four weeks later, 5,427 votes were 
cast for the Southern candidates and 791 for their opponents, 
the increment being largely due to the importation of electors 
from Missouri, who came into the Territory on the day of the 
election, and, having voted, returned home at night. 

By this guilty initiative they obtained on the threshold an 
immense advantage. They secured absolute control of the 
political agencies of the Territory. The Legislature, which as- 



Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 453 

sembled at Pawnee in July, adopted the slave code of Mis- 
souri en bloc, supplementing these statutes with original laws 
making many new offenses against the slave system punishable 
with death, and compelling every official, candidate, and voter 
to take an oath to support the fugitive-slave law. 

The idea of permanently colonizing Kansas with free labor 
from the North by systematic migration, and thus determining 
the question of the institutions of the new empire of the West, 
originated with Eli Thayer, of Massachusetts, who organized 
the Emigrant Aid Society in that State in 1854. The example 
was immediately followed in other parts of the North, and the 
pioneer colony reached the mouth of the Kansas River July 
28th. Among the most prominent leaders of the colonists 
from New England were Samuel C. Pomeroy, afterwards for 
twelve vears a senator of the United States ; and Charles Rob- 
inson, an earlv settler in California, where he had fallen in 
an armed struggle for what he believed to be the cause of 
popular rights against corporate injustice and tyranny. By 
one of those singular and pleasing coincidences which the judg- 
ment would reject as an unreal and extravagant climax in a 
romance or drama, he camped for the night on his overland 
journev in 1849 in the enchanting valley of the Wakarusa, to 
which, five years later, he returned to found the city of Law- 
rence, the intellectual capital of the State, of which he became 
the first Governor, and where, in the afternoon (1891) of an 
honorable, useful, and adventurous career, he still survives, 
his eye not dim nor his natural force abated, the object of 
affectionate regard and veneration. 

The emigrants from the North were almost without excep- 
tion from civil life, laborers, farmers, mechanics, and' artisans, 
young men of the middle class, reared in toil and inured to pov- 



454 John James Ingalls. 

ertv, unused to arms and unschooled in war. They were intel- 
ligent, devout, and patriotic. They came to plough and plant, 
to open farms, erect mills, to saw lumber and grind corn, to 
trade, teach school, build towns, and construct a free State. 
But one of them — James Henry Lane — had any military experi- 
ence. He had been a colonel in the Mexican War of an Indi- 
ana regiment, and was afterwards a Democratic lieutenant- 
governor and member of Congress from that State. He had an 
extraordinarv assemblage of mental, moral, and physical traits, 
and, with even a rudimentary perception of the value of per- 
sonal character as an clement of success in ])ublic afTairs. would 
have been a great leader, with an enduring fanir. lUu in arms 
he was a Captain Bobadil, and in politics a Ritlmeister Dugald 
Dalgetty. He proposed to "settle the vexed question and save 
Kansas from further outrage " by a battle between one hundred 
slave-holders, including Senator Atchison, and one hundred 
Free State men, including himself, to be fought in the presence 
of twelve United States senators and twelve members of the 
House of Representatives as umpires! 

He was the object of inexplicable idolatry and unspeakable 
execration. With his partisans, the superlatives of adulation 
were feeble and meagre; with his foes, the lexicon of infamy 
contained no epithets sufficiently lurid to express their abhor- 
rence and detestation. They alleged that he never paid a debt 
nor told the truth, save by accident or on compulsion, and that 
to reach the goal of his ambition he had no convictions he 
would not sell, made no promise he would not break, and had 
no friend he would not betray. 

A lean, haggard, and sinewy figure, with a Mephistophelian 
leer upon his shaven visage, his movements were alert and rest- 
less, like one at bay and apprehensive of detection. Professing, 



Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 455 

religion, he was never even accused of hypocrisy, for his follow- 
ers knew that he partook of the sacrament as a political device 
to secure the support of the Church ; and that with the same 
nonchalant alacrity, had he been running for office in Hindustan, 
he would have thrown his offspring to the crocodiles of the 
Ganges, or bowed among the Parsees at the shrine of the sun. 
His energy was tireless and his activity indefatigable. No night 
was too dark, no storm too wild, no heat or cold too excessive, 
no distance too great, to delay his meteoric pilgrimages, with 
dilapidated garb and equipage, across the trackless prairies 
from convention to convention. 

His oratory was voluble and incessant, without logic, learn- 
ing, rhetoric, or grace ; but the multitudes to whom he perpetu- 
ally appealed hung upon his hoarse and harsh harangues with 
the rapture of devotees upon the oracular rhapsodies of a 
prophet, and responded to his apostrophes with frenzied 
enthusiasm. 

He gained the prize which he sought with such fevered am- 
bition ; but, after many stormy and tempestuous years. Neme- 
sis, inevitable in such careers, demanded retribution. He pre- 
sumed too far upon the toleration of a constituency which had 
honored him so long and had forgiven him so much. He tran- 
scended the limitations which the greatest cannot pass. He 
apostatized once too often ; and in his second term in the vSen- 
ate, to avoid impending exposure, after a tragic interval of 
despair, he died by his own hand, surviving ten days after the 
bullet had passed through his brain. 

The Northern press, alive to the importance of the strug- 
gle, united in an appeal to public opinion, such as had never 
before been formulated, and despatched to the Territory a corps 
of correspondents of unsurpassed ability and passionate devo- 



456 John James Ixgalls. 

tion to liberty. Foremost among these apostles were William 
A. Phillips, who, after long and distinguished service in the 
Army and in Congress, lives in literary retirement upon a mag- 
nificent estate near the prosperous city of Salina, which he 
founded ; Albert Dean Richardson, whose assassination in New 
York in 1869 prematurely closed a brilliant career; and James 
Redpath, subsequently editor of the XortJi American Review. 
Their contributions reached eager readers in every State, and 
were reprinted beyond the seas, chronicling everv incident, 
delineating every prominent man, arousing indignation bv the 
recitation of the wrongs they denounced, and exciting the imag- 
ination with descriptions of the loveliness of the land, rivalling 
Milton's portraiture of the Garden of Eden. No time was ever 
so minutely and so indelibly photographed upon the public ret- 
ina. The name of no State was ever on so many friendly and so 
many hostile tongues. It was pronounced in everv political 
speech, and inserted in every party platform. No region was 
/ever so advertised, and the impression then produced has never 
-passed away. 

The journalists were reinforced by the p6ets, artists, novel- 
ists, and orators of an age distinguished for genius, learning, 
and inspiration. Lincoln, Douglas, Seward, and Sumner deliv- 

• ered their most memorable speeches upon the theme. Phillips 
: and Beecher, then at the meridian of their powers, appealed to 

the passions and the conscience of the Nation by unri\-alled 

• eloqyence and invective. Prizes were offered for lyrics, that 

-were obtained, so profound was the impulse, by obscure and 

umknown competitors. Lowell, Bryant, Holmes, Longfellow, 

and Emerson lent the magic of their verse. Whittier was the 

laureate of the era. His "Burial of Barbour" and "Marais du 

Cygne" seemed like a prophet's cry for vengeance to the immi- 



Kansas: 1541 — 1891. ^^y 

grants, who marched to the inspiring strains of "Suona la 
Tromba," or chanted, to the measure of "Auld Lang-Syne," 

"We cross the prairies as of old 
Our fathers crossed the sea." 

The contagion spread to foreign lands, and alien torches 
were lighted at the flame. Walter Savage Landor wrote an 
ode to free Kansas. Lady Byron collected money, which she 
sent to the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," for the relief of the 
sufferers in Kansas. Volunteers from Itah-, France, and 
Germany, revolutionists and exiles, served in the desultory 
war, many of whom afterwards fought with distinction in the 
armies of the Union. It was the romance of history. The 
indescribable agitation which always attends the introduction 
of a great moral question into politics pervaded the souls of 
men, transforming the commonplace into the ideal, and inaug- 
urating a heroic epoch. The raptures that swelled the hearts 
of the pioneers yet thrill and vibrate in the blood of their pos- 
terity, like the chords of a smitten harp when the player has 
departed. 

The Free State settlers, being powerless to overcome or 
reverse the political action of their adversaries, adopted the 
policy of ignoring it altogether. They resolved to endeavor 
to change the Territory into a State without the formality of an 
enabling act of Congress. Their competence to do this was 
denied, on the ground that it was in opposition to the regularly 
organized political authorities ; but they chose delegates to a 
convention, which met at Topeka, and framed a Constitution 
that was adopted in December, 1855, by 1,731 for to 46 against, 
its friends only participating in the election. 

A governor and other State ofiicers and a delegate in Con- 
gress were chosen in January. The national House of Repre- 



458 John James Ingalls. 

sentatives, J,uly 3, 1856, passed a bill for the admission of the 
State under this Constitution, but it was rejected in the Senate. 

Acting, however, upon the theory that the State existed, 
the Legislature chosen under the Topeka Constitution assem- 
bled July 4, 1856, but was dispersed by United States troops 
commanded by Colonel Sumner on the order of President 
Pierce, who denounced the movement as an insurrection 
requiring the forcible interposition of national authority. 
Further attempts to organize were thwarted by the arrest of 
the leaders for usurpation of office and misprision of treason. 

Immigration from the North increased, and under the assur- 
ance of Governor Walker that the election should be honest 
and peaceable, the two parties had the first actual test of their 
relative strength October, 1857, when the Free State electors 
chose thirty-three out of fifty-two members of the Legislature. 
For delegate in Congress 3,799 votes were cast for Epaphro- 
ditus Ransom, who had been Governor of Michigan, 1848-49, 
and 7,888 for Marcus J. Parrott, an ambitious and popular 
member of the Leavenworth bar. 

Born in South Carolina, of Huguenot ancestry, Parrott was 
at an earlv age domiciled in Ohio, whither his family had 
removed to escape the contaminating influences of slavery. 
He was graduated at Yale, and trained to the law. He came 
to the Territory two years before, at the age of twenty-six, 
politically in sympathy with the party in power, and expecting 
to be the recipient of its favors. Imbued with a passion for 
libertv, he revolted at the methods pursued by its foes, and 
espoused the cause of freedom with the ardor of a generous and 
impulsive nature. Reared in affluence, and of easy fortune, 
he was familiar with the ways of the world, and united to the 
bearing of a courtier a captivating suavity of address, which 



Kansas: 1541—1891. 4^^ 

propitiated all sorts and conditions of men. He was like a 
thread of gold shot through the rough woof of the frontier. 
Though not of heroic stature, his dark, vivacious countenance, 
the rich melody of his voice, and his impressive elocution, gave 
him great power as an orator. He possessed the fatal gift 
of fluency, but, wanting depth and sincerity, seemed like an 
actor seeking applause, rather than a leader striving to direct, 
or a statesman endeavoring to convince the understanding of 
his followers. His service in Congress demanded the indulgent 
judgment of his constituents, and failing of an election to the 
Senate when the State was admitted, he yielded to the allure- 
ments of appetite, squandered two fortunes in travel and pleas- 
ure, and the splendid light of his prophetic morning sank lower 
and lower until it was quenched in the outer darkness of gloom 
and desolation. 

The leaders of the Pro-slavery forces from this time prac- 
tically abandoned their aggressive efforts, admitting that they 
had been overcome by the superior resources of the North ; but 
the so-called "bogus Legislature." before its expiration, called 
another convention, which sat at Lecompton, and adopted 
the Constitution known in history by that name. It recog- 
nized the existence of slavery in the Territory, forbade the 
enactment of emancipation laws, and prohibited amendments 
before 1864. Knowing its fate if submitted to the people, it 
provided that only the clause relating to slavery should be 
voted upon, but that the instrument itself should l)e estab- 
lished by act of Congress admitting the State. The slavery 
clause was adopted by 6,256 to 567, the Free State men refrain- 
ing from voting; but as soon as the new Legislature met, an 
act was passed submitting the entire Constitution to the pop- 



46o John James Ingalls. 

ular vote, January 4, 1858, when it was rejected by 10,256 to 
162, the Pro-slavery men not appearing at the polls. 

The debate was then transferred to Congress, and the effort 
to admit the State under the Lecompton Constitution failed, 
although the President urged it, and its friends were in a major- 
ity in both houses. The tempting bribe of the English Bill, 
which was offered as a compromise, was rejected bv the peo- 
ple in August by 11,088 to 1,788, and thus the curtain fell on 
Lecompton. 

The abortive series of constitutions was enlarged by the 
formation of the fifth at Leavenworth, which was also ratified 
by the people, but rejected by Congress on the ground that 
the population was insufficient. The Territorial existence of 
Kansas closed with the adoption, October 4, 1859, by a vote of 
10,421 to 5,530, of the Wyandotte Constitution, under which, 
the Southern senators having departed, Kansas was admitted 
into the L'nion, January 29, 1861. 

The long procession of Governors and acting Governors 
sent to rule over the Territory vanished away like the show of 
eight kings, the last having a glass in his hand, Banquo's ghost 
following, in the witches' cavern in "Macbeth" — Reeder, Shan- 
non, Geary, Stanton. Walker, Denver, Medary, and Beebee — 
* ' come like shadows, so depart ! ' ' 

It is a strange illustration of Anglo-Saxon pride of race, and 
of its haughty assumption of superiority, that in a State which 
apotheosized John Brown of Osawatomie, and gave a new def- 
inition to the rights of man, suft'rage was confined to "white 
male citizens." But the people of Kansas were too brave and 
strong to be long unjust. The first colored man regularly 
enlisted as a soldier was sworn and mustered at Fort Leaven- 
worth. The first colored regiment was raised in Kansas, and 



Kansas: 1541^1891. 461 

the first engagement in which negroes fought was under the 
command of a Kansas officer, October 26, 1862. The citizen 
longest in office in the State — for nearly thirty years — was 
colored, and born a slave. 

The admission of the State and the outbreak of the Rebel- 
lion were coincident, and, as might have been predicted from 
their martial gestation, the people devoted themselves with 
unabated zeal to the maintenance of the Union. Being out- 
side the field of regular military operations, inaccessible by 
railroads, exposed to guerrilla incursions from Missouri and 
to Indian raids from the south and west, the campaign of de- 
fense was continuous, and for four years the entire population 
was under arms. Immigration ceased. By the census of June, 
i860, the number of inhabitants was 143,463; at the close of 
the war it had declined to 140,179. Fields lay fallow, and 
the fire of the forges expired. Towns were deserted, and 
homesteads abandoned. The State sent more soldiers to bat- 
tle than it had voters when the war began. Under all calls, 
its quota was 12,931; it furnished 20,151, without bounty or 
conscription. Nineteen regiments, five companies, and three 
batteries participated in 127 engagements, of which seven 
were on her own soil. From \A'ilson Creek to the Gulf every 
great field in the Southwest was illustrated by their valor and 
consecrated by their blood. Her proportion of mortality in the 
field was the largest among the States, exceeding 61 in each 
1,000 enlistments, Vermont following with 58, and Massachu- 
setts with nearly 48. Provost-Marshal General Fry, in his linal 
roster of the Union armies, in which all are alike entitled to 
honor, because all alike did their duty, wrote this certificate of 
precedence in glor}': 



462 John James Ingalls. 

"Kansas shows the highest battle mortahty of the table. The same 
singularly martial disposition which induced about one-half of the able- 
bodied men of the State to enter the Army without bounty may be sup- 
posed to have increased their exposure to the casualties of battle after they 
were in the service." 

With the close of the war the first decennium ended, and 
the disbanded veterans returned under the flag they had 
redeemed to the State they had made free. Attracted by 
homesteads upon the pubhc domain, by jtist and Hberal exemp- 
tion laws, and by the companionship of the brave, those heroes 
were reinforced by a vast host of their comrades, representing 
every arm of the military and naval service from all the States 
of the Union. Not less than 30 per cent of its electors have 
fought in the Union armies, and the present commander of the 
Grand Army of the Republic, Timothy McCarthy, witnessed 
the defense of vStmiter and the surrender at Appomattox. 

Population increased from 8,601 in 1855 to 140,179 in 1865, 
528,349 in 1875; 1,268,562 in 1885, and 1,427,096 in 1890. In 
a community so rapidly assembled the homogeneity of its ele- 
ments is extraordinary. Kansas is distinctly the American 
State. Less than 10 per cent of its inhabitants are of foreign 
birth, principally English, Germans, and Scandinavians; and 
less than 4 per cent of African descent. The State is often 
called the child of the Puritans, but, contrary to the popular 
impression, the immigration from New England was compar- 
atively trivial in numbers, much the larger contributions hav- 
ing been derived from Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Penn- 
sylvania, New York, and Kentucky. It is the ideas of the Pil- 
grims, and not their descendants, that have had dominion in 
the young commonwealth, which resembles primitive Massa- 
chusetts before its middle classes had disappeared and its 



Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 463 

■society become stratified into the superfluously rich and the 
hopelessly poor. 

Within these pastoral boundaries there are no millionaires 
nor any paupers, except such as have been deprived by age, 
disease, and calamity of the ability to labor. No great for- 
tunes have been brought to the State, and none have been ac- 
cumulated by commerce, manufactures, or speculation. No 
sumptuous mansions nor glittering equipages nor ostentatious 
display exasperate or allure. Legislation protects wages and 
■cabins no less than bonds and palaces, and the free school, the 
jury, and impartial suffrage have resulted in the establishment 
of justice, liberty, fraternity, and equality as the foundations 
of the State. 

Politically, as might have been predicted, the Republican 
party, whose birth is indissolubly associated with the efforts 
to dedicate Kansas to freedom, continued supreme for thirty 
years. During that period the State had but one Governor 
and one member of Congress of another faith, and there have 
been few Legislatures in which the membership of the opposi- 
tion has risen as high as 20 per cent. This supremacy has not 
been favorable to national leadership, both parties having 
reserved their allegiance and their favors for more doubtful 
constituencies. 

An equlibrium which compels the presentation of strong 
and unexceptionable candidates and the practice of honesty 
and economy in administration is better than a disproportion- 
ate majority which makes the contest end with a nomination. 
When one party has nothing to hope and the other nothing to 
fear, degradation and decay are inevitable. Intrigue supplants 
merit; the sense of responsibility disappears; manipulation of 
primaries, caucuses, and conventions displaces the conflict and 



464 John James Ingalls. 

collision of opinion and debate. Paltry ambitions become re- 
spectable. Little men aspire to great places, and distinguished 
careers are impossible. 

In addition to those elsewhere mentioned, others who have 
been prominent in State and national affairs are Martin F. 
Conway, the first representative in Congress, a native of 
Maryland, a diminutive, fair-haired, blue-eyed enthusiast, 
with the bulging brow and retiring chin of Swinburne, an 
erratic political dreamer, whose reveries ended at Saint Eliza- 
beth's ; Generals James G. Blunt, Robert B. Mitchell, George \V. 
Deitzler, Charles W. Blair, Albert L. Lee, and Powell Clayton, 
military leaders, and eminent also in civil life; Edmund G. 
Ross, the successor of Lane in the Senate, who forfeited the 
confidence of his constituents by voting against the impeach- 
ment of President Johnson, and was subsequently appointed 
by President Cleveland Governor of Xew Mexico; Thomas A. 
Osborn, who, aftei ser\nng as Governor (1873-77), had a remark- 
ably successful diplomatic career as United States minister 
to Chile and Brazil; John P. St. John, twice Governor, prom- 
inently identified with the cause of prohibition, and the candi- 
date of its advocates for the Presidency in 1884; John A. Mar- 
tin, a distinguished soldier, editor of a leading journal, Gov- 
ernor 1884-88, in whose administration the municipal organi- 
zation of the State was completed; Preston B. Plumb, senator 
from 1877 until his untimely death, December 20, i8gi; and 
Bishop \\'. Perkins, his successor by appointment, after sev- 
eral terms upon the bench, and eight years of distinguished 
service in the House of Representatives; Thomas Ryan, ten 
3^ears member of Congress, and now representing the United 
States as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiarv to 
Mexico. 



Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 465 

Philosophers and historians recognize the influence of early 
settlers upon the character and destinies of a community. 
Original impulses are long continued, like the characteristics 
and propensities which the mother bestows upon her unborn 
■child. The constant vicissitudes of climate, of fortune, of his- 
tory, together with the fluctuations of politics and business, 
liave engendered in Kansas hitherto perpetual agitation, not 
always favorable to happiness, but which has stimulated activ- 
ity, kept the popular pulse feverish, and begotten a mental 
condition exalted above the level monotonies of life. Every 
one is on the <iHi vi'vc, alert, vigilant, like a sentinel at an out- 
post. Existence has the excitement of a game of chance, of a 
revolution, of a battle whose event is doubtful. The unprece- 
dented environment has produced a temperament volatile and 
mercurial, marked by uncalculating ardor, enterprise, intrepid- 
ity and insatiable hunger for innovation, out of which has grown 
a society that has been alternately the reproach and the marvel 
of mankind. 

For a generation Kansas has been the testing-ground for 
■every experiment in morals, politics, and social life. Doubt 
of all existing institutions has been respectable. Nothing has 
"been venerable or revered merely because it exists or has 
■endured. Prohibition, female suffrage, fiat money, free silver, 
■every incoherent and fantastic dream of social improvement 
and reform, every economic delusion that has bewildered the 
foggy brains of fanatics, every political fallacy nurtured by 
misfortune, poverty, and failure, rejected elsewhere, has here 
found tolerance and advocacy. The enthusiasm of youth, the 
■conservatism of age, have alike yielded to the contagion, mak- 
ing the historv of the State a melodramatic series of cataclysms, 
in which tragedy and comedy have contended for the mastery, 



466 John James Ingalls 

and the convulsions of Nature have been emulated by the catas- 
trophes of society. There has been neither peace, tranquillity, 
nor repose. The farmer can never foretell his harvest, nor the 
merchant his gains, nor the politician his supremacy. Some- 
thing startling has always happened, or has been constant- 
ly anticipated. The idol of to-day is execrated to-morrow. 
Seasons of phenomenal drought, when the sky was brass and 
the earth iron, "have been followed by periods of indescribable 
fecundity, in which the husbandman has been embarrassed by 
abundance, whose value has been diminished by its excess. 
Cvclones, blizzards, and grasshoppers have been so identified 
with, the State in public estimation as to be described by its- 
name, while some of the bouleversements of its politics ha\c 
aroused the inextinguishable laughter, and others have excited 
the commiseration and condemnation, of mankind. 

But as, in spite of its anomalies and the obstacles of Na- 
ture, the growth of the State in wealth and numbers has beeu 
unprecedented, and its condition is one of stable and per- 
manent prosperity; so, notwithstanding the vagaries and ec- 
centricities into which by the appeals of reformers and the 
pressure of misfortune they have sometimes been betrayed,, 
the great body of the people are patriotic, conservative, and 
intelligent to a degree not surpassed elsewhere, and seldom 
equalled among the children of men. 

The social emancipation of woman is complete. The only 
limitation upon her political equality with man is in the right of 
suffrage, which is confined to municipal and school-district, 
elections. Women are exempt from jury duty, from military 
service, and from work upon the highways ; but, whether mar- 
ried or single, they can practice the professions, engage in mer- 
cantile business, follow any industry or occupation, and pursue 



Kansas: 1541—1891. 467 

any calling, upon the same conditions as men. The distinction 
of sex is recognized only in its natural sense and use. The prop- 
erty, real and personal, of a single woman remains her own 
after marriage, unless voluntarily alienated. vShe can sue and 
be sued in her own name, and her estate is not liable for her 
husband's debts, nor can the homestead be sold or encum- 
bered without her conset. When the marriage is ended by 
death, the survivor is entitled to a moiety of the joint and sev- 
eral estate, with the remainder to the children. Agitation for 
full suffrage is active, and will undoubtedly ultimately prevail. 

The first bonds voted in the State were for school-houses, 
and the first tax levied in every community, the largest tax, 
and the tax most cheerfully paid, is the school tax. For the 
education of her children, Kansas has already spent the enor- 
mous total of $40,000,000, nearly one-half the entire cost of 
State and municipal government. Equal facilities are afforded 
to whites and blacks. More than $21,000,000 are invested in 
school-houses, vState buildings, lands, and other property for 
educational purposes. The average school year is twenty- 
seven weeks, supported by State, district, and county taxa- 
tion, amounting in 1890 to $5,696,659.69. 

This magnificent educational system wears the triple crown 
of the State University at Lawrence, with a faculty of thirty- 
six members and 474 students; the vState Normal School at 
Emporia, with a faculty of eighteen members and 1,200 stu- 
dents; and the Agricultural College at Manhattan, with an en- 
dowment from public lands of $501,426.33, $15,000 annually 
from the Government as an experiment station, an annual 
income of $65,000, a faculty of eighteen members, and 575 
students. 



468 JoHx James Ixgall'^. 

Public education is supplemented by private and denonn- 
national schools, with an avera.^e yearly attendance of 65,000. 
and Iniildings and endowments valued at two and a quarter 
million dollars. Such efforts and sacrifices have already pro- 
duced perceptible and gratifying results. The illiterate frac- 
tion in Kansas is the smallest save one in the Xation. The 
general standard of intelligence is unusuallv high. The State 
publications and reports are models for imitation, notably the 
Biennial of the vState Board of Agriculture, speaking whereof 
the London Times, in 1880, said: "The resources the book 
describes fill the Pjiglish mind with astonishment and envy." 

The curse and bane of frontier life is drunkenness. The 
literature of the mining-camp, the cross-roads, and the cattle- 
ranch reeks with whisky. In every new settlement the saloon 
precedes the school-house and the church; is the rendezvous 
of ruffians, the harbor of criminals, the recruiting-station of the 
murderer, the gambler, the harlot, and the thief; a perpetual 
menace to social order, intelligence, and morality, above whose 
portal should be inscribed the legend engraved on the lintel of 
the infernal gates: 'Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch' entrate." 

Agitation against the evils of intemperance was contem- 
porary with the political organization of the Territory. The 
founders of Topeka and Lawrence forbade the sale of intox- 
icating beverages within their corporate limits, and the debate 
continued until 1881. when a constitutional amendment was 
adopted forever prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intox- 
icating liquors, except for medicinal, mechanical, and scientific 
purposes. This was enforced by appropriate legislation, and 
the validity of the amendment and of the statutes was sus- 
tained bv the Supreme Courts of the State and of the Nation. 
After futile and costly resistance, the dramshop trafllc has 



Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 469 

disappeared from the State. Surreptitious sales coiitiiuie; 
club drinking and "joints" are not unknown; but tlie saloon 
has vanished, and the law has been better enforced than similar 
legislation elswhere. In the larger towns prohibition is not so 
strictly observed as in the rural districts, where public opinion 
is more rigid; but in all localities the beneficent results are 
apparent in the diminution of crime, pt)verly, and disorder. 
Banned by law, the occupation is stigmatized, and becomes 
disreputable. If the offender avoids punishment, he does 
not escape contempt. Drinking being in secret, temptation is 
diminished, the weak are protected from their infirmities, and 
the young from their appetites and passions. 

Much of the prominence of Kansas is due to the novel and 
startling methods employed by its journalists to invite public 
attention to the opportunities found here for success and hap- 
piness. They have been the persistent and conspicuous advo- 
cates of immigration, railroads, schools, churclies, manufacto- 
ries, and improvements. 

The first printing-press was brought by Jotham Meeker in 
1833 to Shawnee Mission, a station of the Methodist Church, 
established in what is now Johnson County, in 1829. Upon its 
primitive platen were printed religious books, pamphlets, tracts, 
and a newspaper in the Indian tongue, in a region then more 
remote and inaccessible than Alaska now. This venerable relic, 
after nearly sixty years of service, is still on duty in one of 
the southern counties of the State. The first newspaper in 
the Territory was the Leavenworth Herald, printed in the open 
air under an elm-tree on the levee of the city of that name. It 
has been succeeded by a swarming multitude of original, inge- 
nious, and brilliant ventures in journalism, magazines, reviews, 
periodicals, papers, daily and weekly, varying in excellence, 



470 John James Ingalls. 

but united in vociferous and persistent affirmation that Kansas 
is the best State in the most glorious country on the finest planet 
in the solar system; that its soil is the richest, its climate the 
most salubrious, its men the most eiilerprising. its women the 
most beautiful, its children the most docile, its horses the fast- 
est, its cattle the largest, its sheep the woolliest, its hogs the 
fattest, its grasshoppers tlie most beneficent, its blizzards the 
warmest, its cyclones the mildest, its droughts the wettest, its 
hot winds the coldest, its past the most glorious, its present the 
most prophetic, its destiny the most sublime. 

They remind the bewildered reader of the feat of the Hindoo 
necromancer who throws a ball of cord into the air, catches the 
depending end, and, climbing hand over hand, disappears in 
the blue abyss of the sky. Their versatile and extravagant 
spirit appears in the extraordinary nomenclature which serves 
to attract the attention of the searcher after truth. Among 
them mav be found The Thomas {County) Cat, The Wano Rtis- 
tler, The Paralyzer, The Cherokee Cyclone, The Cimarron Sod 
House, The Lake City Prairie Dog, The Bazoo, The Lucifer, The 
Prairie Owl, The Kincaid Knuckle, The Bundle of Sticks, The 
Cap-Sheaf, The Dodge City Cowboy. 

The newspapers have been the advance agents of civiliza- 
tion, often the voice of one crying in the wilderness. They 
have reversed the ancient order, and instead of waiting for 
subscribers and advertisers, they have been the sappers and 
miners of the assault upon the solitudes of Nature. The moral 
tone of the press is exceptionally pure, its intellectual plane 
unusu.'^lly elevated; it is generous in the treatment of public 
men, just in the criticism of opponents, broad and liberal in 
views of State and national policy and administration. 



Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 471 

The hunger and thirst for knowledge, which has created and 
in turn is stimulated by the press, has a wider scope, and the 
people are omnivorous readers of metropolitan journals and 
leading periodicals. With the church and the school have been 
established great numbers of public and private libraries, so 
that religion, learning, and literature have become the moving 
forces of every community. The State Library and the col- 
lection of the State Historical Society at the capital, and the 
public libraries in other localities, are richer and larger than 
those of many of the older States. 

The venerable jest, that there is no Sunday west of the Mis- 
sissippi, is not entirely jocular. It has a suggestion of truth. 
The same influence which makes men indififerent to the past 
renders them careless also of the future. Ambition and cupid- 
ity are the ruling passions in new communities, and the chief end 
of man is not to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, but to 
make money and run for office. The concern for this world is 
much greater than for that which is to come. Religion is con- 
servative. It stands upon authority, and demands obedience. 
The pioneer is radical, impatient of dogmas, and a "kicker" by 
instinct. He detests bigots, hypocrites, and fossils. His mind 
being inquisitive, its tendency is toward materialism and ration- 
alism rather than faith. He is not disturbed by anathemas, 
and with composure hears himself described as an agnostic; 
but he is reverent, tolerant, and devout. He recognizes relig- 
ion as one of the great beneficent forces of the universe, an indis- 
pensable premise in the syllogism of human destiny, without 
which society would be a sophism, and the soul of man a fallacy, 
Kansas attests her convictions by 4,000 church organizations, 
representing every denomination, with an aggregate member- 



472 John James Ingalls. 

ship of nearly 317,000, having 2,339 houses of worship, and 
property valued at about $9,000,000. 

The first railroad track in Kansas was laid March 20, 1 860, 
on the Elwood and Marys^ille line, opposite the city of St. 
Joseph. On the 73d of April the "Albany," a pioneer locomo- 
tive, a veteran which had been used from Boston to the Mis- 
souri as railroads advanced across the continent, was ferried 
over the river, and drew the first train on the first section of 
the Pacific Railroad. Construction ceased with the breaking" 
out of the war, but was resumed with great vigor at its close. 
Stimulated by liberal donations from cities, towns, and coun- 
ties, railroad-building became a mania, with disastrous results. 
In addition to the great trunk lines through populous and pro- 
ductive regions, subsidiary branches, unnecessary auxiliaries, 
and superfluous feeders were built, without earning capacity, 
burdening communities with irretrievable self-imposed debts, 
absorbing the revenues of those which were remunerative, giv- 
ing poor service, and rapidly deteriorating from neglect and 
poverty. 

In August, 1863, the grading of the Kansas Pacific Railroad 
was begun at the State line between Kansas and Missouri, in 
the dense forest of cottonwoods that then shaded the site of 
what has since become a populous suburb of one of the great 
cities of the West. The contractor erected at the initial point 
a pillar, inscribing on the face towards the east "Slavery," 
and on the face towards the west "Freedom." This line was 
completed to Lawrence in November, 1864, but the first forty 
miles were not accepted by the Government until October, 1865. 

There are now 109 railroad companies in the State, many 
of them consolidated, with more than 10,000 miles of track, 
assessed at $50,865,825.34. Of the 106 counties, all but five 



Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 



r/..t 



are traversed by railroads, and the traveler entering a Santa 
Fe train at Atchison can, within a week, in a Pullman car, 
reach the city of Mexico over almost the identical route fol- 
lowed bv Coronado in his expedition three hundred and fifty 
years ago. 

This great corporation, chartered in 1857 and pennanenllv 
organized in 1864, was not operated until 1869, and then only 
as a local line from Topeka to the Osage coal-fields, thirty miles 
southw^est. Its land grant was considered of doubtful \alue. 
and capitalists looked askant upon the project of constructing 
a railroad along the unpeopled sands of the Arkansas \'alley, 
which were still the grazing-ground of the buffalo and the hunt- 
ing-ground of the savage. The site of Wichita, alliteratively 
described bv M. M. Murdock, its prophet and herald, as "the 
peerless princess of the plains," with its palaces, temples, 
marts, electric lights, and railways, water-works, elevators, 
flouring-mills, and packing-houses, had not been traced among 
the whispering reeds and scattered cottonwoods of the mead- 
ows bordering on the .American Nile. The sub-irrigation 
which makes the corn and wheat crops independent of the 
rainfall, had not been discovered. The fertility of the loose 
and shifting soil was not suspected, and the vast region seemed 
doomed to perpetual solitude and sterility. 

Some bolder spirits, gifted with the prescience essential to 
great designs, foresaw the future, and sent the surveyors and 
graders, the advance guard of civilization, into the desert. 
Contemporaneously with construction, they advertised t In- 
lands and the State, sending agents to all parts of the L'niou 
and to every country in Europe, penetrating Russia to the 
Crimea; inviting immigration; selling farms at low rates on 
long time; extending payments and giving aid in tinu- ol dis 



474 John James Ingalls. 

tress ; exhibiting the productions of orchards and farms ; bring- 
ing harvest-home excursions from other States; distributing 
maps, pamphlets, and statistical tables as numerous and as 
chromatic colored as autumnal leaves. Similar methods, al- 
though not as extensive nor as liberal, were employed by the 
managers of the Missouri Pacific, Fort Scott and Gulf, the 
Union Pacific, and other trunk lines, under the stimulus of 
which lands rapidly advanced in value, and much that was 
sold at from three to five dollars is now worth as high as one 
hundred dollars per acre. 

The farms of Kansas were not made to order. They waited 
for the plough. There were no forests to fell, no stiunps to 
extract, no rocks to remove, no malaria to combat. These 
undulating fields are the ll(jors of ancient seas. These lime- 
stone ledges underlying the prairies and cropping from the 
foreheads of the hills are the cemeteries of the marine insect 
life of the primeval world. The inexhaustible humus is the 
mould of the decaying herbage of unnumbered centuries. It 
is onlv upon calcareous plains in temperate latitudes that 
agriculture is supreme, and the strong structure and the rich 
nourishment imparted essential to bulk, endurance, and speed 
in animals, to grace, beauty, and passion in women, and in 
man to stature, courage, health, and longevity. 

Here are valleys in which a furrow can be ploughed a hun- 
dred miles long; where all the labor of breaking, planting, 
cultivating, mowing, reaping, and harvesting is performed by 
horses, engines, and machinery, so that farming. has become a 
sedentary occupation. The lister has supplanted the hoe; 
the cradle, the scythe, and the sickle are as unknown to West- 
em agriculture as the catapult and culverin to modern warfare. 
The well-sweep and windlass have been supplanted by the 



Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 475 

windmills, whose vivacious disks disturb the monotonv of 
the sky. But for these labor-saving inventions the pioneers 
would still linger in the valleys of the Ohio and Sangamon, 
and the subjugation of the desert would have been indefinitely 
postponed. 

The ozone of the air, its dryness, and the elevation of the 
land produce nerv^ous exaltation, which creates enthusiasm, 
movement, energy, push, vigor, and "go" ; by whose operation 
men are transformed into "rustlers" and "boomers," inventors 
of new methods to overcome the hostility of Nature, and coiners 
of novel phrases to express their defiance of destiny. Plati- 
tudes are unknown, and all epithets are superlative. Imagin- 
ation predominates ; established formulas and maxims are dis- 
regarded. Upon the rainless and sterile uplands the strata of 
the earth are pierced for water; and marble, paint, cement, 
fire-clay, gypsum, coal, and salt are discovered in the descent. 
If chinch-bugs and noxious insects attack his crops, parasites 
and epidemics are imported for their destruction. Foiled and 
thwarted by the baffling clouds, the undaunted husbandman 
bombards the invisible moisture of the firmament with explos- 
ive balloons, and effusively welcomes the meteorological juggler 
who summons with his incantations aqueous spirits from the 
vasty deep. The faith which removes mountains into the sea 
animates every citizen, and rejects the impossible with calm 
disdain. 

The present wealth of Kansas, real and personal, reaches 
the astounding aggregate of nearly seventeen hundred million 
dollars* — many times more than the valuation of all the States 
in the Union when the Government was established, after one 



*Extra Census Bulletin No. 14, October, 1891. 



476 John James Ingalus. 

hundred and fifty years of colonial existence. This enormous 
accumulation nominally represents a period of forty years* but 
has actually been created in much less, for life in Kansas from 
1854 to 1865 was a bivouac, and the real development of the 
State did not begin until peace was restored. Twenty years 
ago half its area was pastured by buffalo, and a considerable 
part was covered by the reservations of hostile Indians, whose 
depredations continued until 1880, resulting in more than two 
hundred deaths, or captivities less merciful than the grave, 
and the expenditure of millions for the defense of the frontier. 

Even as late as 1875, agriculture beyond the Blue was re- 
garded by many as an uncertain and by some as a desperate 
experiment. Nature appeared to resent the invasion of her 
solitudes. The horrors of internecine war were followed by a 
succession of droughts and hot winds, that, in turn, were re- 
inforced by swarms of locusts, which descended from the torrid 
mesas of New ^lexico and the sterile Piedmont of Colorado and 
Wvoming, obscuring the pitiless sun by their desolating flights, 
leaving the earth they devastated defiled by their loathsome 
exuviae, and poisoning the atmosphere with the foctor of their 
decay. It was like the incarnation of Nature 's secret and evil 
forces, as if the bacilli and microbes of "the pestilence that 
walketh in darkness and the destruction that wasteth at 
noonday" had become visible, endowed with wings, malignant 
intelligence, and insatiable voracity. 

That the State survived the infliction of this series of dis- 
asters seems incredible. A people less sanguine, buoyant, and 
resolute, more unschooled in the lessons of adversity, would 
have succumbed. They would have surrendered uncondition- 
ally, and abandoned their parched fields and farms to the coy- 
ote and the prairie-dog. But the malevolent energies of the 



Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 477 

desert, having been marshalled for this final onset, were repulsed 
by an indomitable persistence superior to their own, and sul- 
lenly withdrew. While envious rivals were jeering, and jeal- 
ous competitors were ffouting, pointing with scorn's slow, 
unmoving finger at the droughts, grasshoppers, hot winds, 
crop failures, and other calamities of Kansas, the world was 
suddenly startled and dazzled by her collective display of horti- 
cultural and agricultural products at the Centennial at Phila- 
delphia, which received the highest awards. Since that time 
there has been no arena in E^urope or \merica in which Kansas 
has declined competition, and at the New Orleans Exposition, 
in 1885, she took sixty-five first and second premiums on wheat, 
corn, flour, sugar, fruit, and cattle, leading all the vStates in the 
Union. 

This year (1891) the yield of wheat has been 58,550-^53 
bushels, nearly one-tenth of the entire crop of the country; of 
oats, 40,000,000 bushels; unfavorable conditions have reduced 
by one-third the average corn crop of 200,000,000 bushels. 
These, supplemented with roots, sorghum, broom-corn, mil- 
let, hay, rye, barley, garden vegetables, honey, and wine, 
have enriched the farmers of Kansas with wealth far ex- 
ceeding the year's yield of the gold and silver mines of the 
United States. The total aggregate value 'of all farm prod- 
ucts for the years 1889 and 1890 was $283,740,491, and that of 
the present biennial, judging by the previous rate of increase, 
will exceed $300,000,000. 

The courage, sand, and grit of the people, their nervv faith 
in fortune, the confidence of capitalists in the staple vahir of 
Kansas lands and in the industry and integrity of their owners, 
have marvellous illustration in the fact that during the ten 
years between 1880 and r890 a recorded real-estate mortgage 



478 John James Ingai^ls. 

indebtedness was incurred of nearly five hundred million dol- 
lars, exclusive of loans upon chattels, State and railroad land 
contracts, personal liabilities, city, township, and county sub- 
sidies for railways and other public objects, aggregating prob- 
ably two hundred millions more. This feverish period culmi- 
nated in a delirium of public and private credit known in local 
history as "the boom ol 1887," whose frenzy and disaster have 
not been exceeded shice the bursting of the "Mississippi bub- 
ble," or the collapse of the "tulipomania" of the seventeenth 
century. 

The building of superfluous towns, the construction of 
unnecessary railroads, the organization of counties and the 
location of county seats ; the entry of public lands for the sole 
purpose of mortgaging the inchoate title at excessive valua- 
tions, became established industries. The agents of Eastern 
companies eagerly competed for the privilege of placing loans 
upon quarter-sections without a fence or furrow, often far 
beyond their market value. Professional "boomers," with a 
retinue of surveyors and cappers and strikers, invaded the 
State, bought and platted additions, which they sold at exor- 
bitant prices to resident and foreign speculators, victims to the 
epidemic passion for sudden wealth, whose inexplicable con- 
tagion infected the reason of men with its undetected bacteria. 

The reaction came like the "next morning" after a night of 
revelry and debauch. The plunderers disappeared with the 
ready money of the people, leaving, instead of anticipated 
wealth, an intolerable burden of maturing indebtedness upon 
deluded purchasers. Empty railroad trains ran across deserted 
prairies to vacant towns. Successive droughts and siroccos 
destroyed the crops in the western half of the State. The 
laborers, mechanics, and speculators, having erected costly 



Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 479 

business blocks that found no tenants, and residences that re- 
mained uninhabited, being without further occupation, sought 
employment elsewhere. The population declined. Pay-day 
came. The coupon matured. Taxes fell due. Creditors be- 
came clamorous. Merchants refused credit, and public and 
private treasuries were depleted. 

These accunmlated misfortunes were supplemented in 1890 
by an irruption of false teachers, with the instruction that such 
disasters were the result of vicious legislation, and could be 
cured by statute ; that banks should be destroyed, debts repu- 
diated, property forcibly redistributed, and poverty abolished 
by act of Congress. It was an exhibition of what Burke 
described as the "insanity of nations." Conservative, thought- 
ful, and patriotic men yielded to an uncontrollable impulse of 
resentment against society. This outburst shocked the public 
credit, temporarily destroyed the ability of the debtor to bor- 
row or to pay, diminished the value of propert)', and inflicted an 
irremediable wound upon the State's good name. But it van- 
ished like one of the ominous and sudden catastrophes of the 
sky. With the return of prosperity came the restoration of 
reason. More than half the enormous indebtedness has already 
been liquidated, and the whole will be honestly and resolutely 
paid. A Kansas loan is as secure as a Government bond. 

The Arabs say that he who drinks of the -Nile must always 
thirst; no other waters can quench or satisfy. So those who 
have done homage and taken the oath of fealty to Kansas can 
never be alienated or forsworn. The love of the people for 
their State is not so much a vague sentiment as an insatiable 
passion. The anniversary of its admission is observed by the 
schools as a festival and holiday, with conunemorative exer- 
cises. Days are set apart in spring, by executive proclamation, 



480 John James Ingalls. 

to decorate the hills and roadsides with trees, as a lover adorns 
his bride with jewels. The defects of climate and the disasters 
of husbandry are indulgently explained and excused as the 
foibles of a friend from whom better things may be anticipated 
hereafter. The wanderers whom caprice or misfortune may 
temporarily banish are recalled by an irresistible solicitation 
as ihey remember the bright aspect of its sky, which is like a 
smile, and the soft touch of its atmosphere, which is like a 
caress. 

The cross which Coronado reared at the verge of his wan- 
derings long since mouldered, and the ashes of the adventurer 
have slept for ages in their ancestral sepulchre in Spain. He 
found neither Quivera's phantom towers nor Cibola's gems and 
gold ; but a fairer capital than that he sought to despoil has risen 
like an exhalation from the solitude he trod, and richer treasure 
than he craved has rewarded the toilers of an alien race. Upon 
their effulgent shield shines a star emerging from stormy clouds 
to the constellation of the Union, and beneath they have writ- 
ten, ".4</ astra per aspcra," an emblem of the past, by whose 
contemplation they are exalted, the prophecy of that nobler 
future to which they confideiillv aspire. 



"AD ASTRA PER ASPERA." 



Ex-Senator Ingalls, enclosing a clipping from a Kansas 
newspaper, writes from Tucson, Arizona, to the Mail and Breeze, 
as follows: 

"John Speer, of Lawrence, in speaking of the report that John J. 
Ingalls had plagiarized the Kansas motto, 'Ad astra per aspsra,' says: 
' I never knew until this scramble came up that there was any dispute that 
Josiah Miller, of Lawrence, chairman of the Committee on State Seal in the 
first Kansas Legislature, was the author of the phrase. It has always 
been attributed to him, and years ago, when he died, this motto was cut 
on the stone on his grave. Ingalls was clerk of that committee, but I never 
heard before that he claimed the authorship of the motto. I remember 
that Miller once told me how delighted he was when he hit on the motto.' 
"I was Secretary of the Senate, not clerk of Miller's committee. The 
motto is as old as Josephus; it may be found in any Latin phrase-book and 
the appendix to all dictionaries. It is one of the commonest mottoes in 
heraldry, and is borne, I suppose, by a hundred families in England with 
their coat-of-arms. The first time I ever saw it was on an old brass seal 
in Haverhill, Mass., in 1857. The same thought is expressed in many dif- 
ferent ways; but 'Ad astra per aspera' seemed the most melodious, and so 
I selected it for my sketch. With a motto as with a proverb, the question 
is not whether it is original, but whether it is appropriate. I remember 
Judge Miller well, and am glad to know from Mr. Speer that he is the 
author of the phrase. He must have been an older man than I supposed. 

"John J. Ing.\lls. 
"Tucson, May 18, 1900." 

It is also of interest to note in this connection that Mr. 
Ingalls suggested the original design for the great seal of Kan- 
sas upon the admission of the State into the Union, together 
with the motto, "Ad astra per aspera" ("To the stars through 
difficulties"). Unfortunately, however, the beauty and sim- 

481 



482 John James Ixgalls. 

plicity of his original design were marred by the committee 
to whom it was submitted for adoption. The history of this 
emblematic device can best be given in ex-Senator Ingalls' 
own characteristic words: 

"I was vSecretary of the Kansas State Senate at its first session after 
our admission in 186 1. A joint committeee was appointed to present a 
design for the great seal of the State, and I suggested a sketch embracing 
a single star rising from the clouds at the base of a field, with the con- 
stellation (representing the number of States then in the Union) above, 
accompanied by the motto, 'Ad astra per aspcra.' 

"If you will examine the seal as it now exists, you will see that my 
idea was adopted; but, in addition thereto, the committee incorporated a 
mountain scene, a river view, a herd of buft'alo chased by Indians on horse- 
back, a log-cabin, with a settler plowing in the foreground, together with 
a number of other incongruous, allegorical, and metaphorical augmenta- 
tions, which destroyed the beauty and simplicity of my design. 

"The clouds at the base were intended to represent the perils and 
troubles of our Territorial history; the star emerging therefrom, the new 
State; the constellation, like that on the flag, the Union, to which, after a 
stormy struggle, it had been admitted." 



KANSAS. 



Kansas is the navel of the Nation. 

Diagonals drawn from jDuluth to ^alveston, from Wash- 
ington to San Francisco, from Tallahassee to Olympia, from 
Sacramento to Augusta, intersect at its centre. 

Kansas is the nucleus of our political system, around which 
forces assemble, to which its energies converge, and from 
which its energies radiate to the remotest circumference. 

Kansas is the focus of freedom, where the rays of heat and 
light concentrated into a flame that melted the manacles of 
the slave and cauterized the heresies of State sovereignty and 
disunion. 

Kansas is the core and kernel of the country, containing 
the germs of its growth and the quickening ideas essential to 
its perpetuity. 

The historv of Kansas is written in capitals. It is punctu- 
ated with exclamation points. Its verbs are imperative. Its 
adjectives are superlative. The commonplace and prosaic are 
not defined in its lexicon. Its statistics can be stated only in 
the language of hyperbole. 

The aspiration of Kansas is to reach the unattainable ; its 
dream is the realization of the impossible. Alexander wept 
because there were no more worlds to conquer. Kansas, hav- 
ing vanquished all competitors, smiles complacently as she 
surpasses from year to year her own triumphs in growth and 

483 



484 John James Ingalls. 

glory. Other States could be spared with irreparable bereave- 
ment, but Kansas is indispensable to the joy, the inspiration, 
and the improvement of the world. 

It seems incredible that there was a time when Kansas 
did not exist ; when its name was not wTitten on the map 
of the United vStates; when the Kansas cyclone, the Kansas 
grass-hopper, the Kansas boom, and the Kansas Utopia were 
unknown. 

I was a student in the Junior class at Williams College when 
President Pierce, forgotten but for that signature, approved 
the act establishing the Territory of Kansas, May 30, 1854. I 
remember the inconceivable agitation that preceded, accom- 
panied, and followed this event. It was an epoch. Destiny 
closed one volume of our annals, and, opening another, traced 
with shadowy finger upon its pages a million epitaphs, ending 
with "Appomattox." 

Kansas was the prologue to a tragedy whose epilogue has 
not yet been pronounced; the prelude to a fugue of battles 
whose reverberations have not yet died away. 

Floating one summer night upon a moonlit sea, I heard far 
over the still waters a high, clear voice singing: 

• To the West! To the West! To the land of the free, 
Where the mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea ; 
Where a man is a man if he 's willing to toil, 
And the humblest may gather the fruits of the soil." 

A few days later, my studies being completed, I joined the 
uninterrupted and resistless column of volunteers that marched 
to the land of the free. St. Louis was a squalid border town, 
the outpost of civilization. The railroad ended at Jefferson 
City. Transcontinental trains, with sleepers and dining-cars, 



Kansas. 485 

annihilating space and time, were the vague dream of the 
future century. 

Overtaking at Hermann a fragile steamer that had left her 
levee the day before, we embarked upon a monotonous voyage 
of four days along the treacherous and tortuous channel that 
crawled, between forest and cottonwood and barren bars of 
tawny sand, to the frontier of the American Desert. 

It was the mission of the pioneer with his plough to abolish 
the frontier and to subjugate the desert. One has become a 
boundary and the other an oasis. But with so much acquisi- 
tion, something has been lost for which there is no compensa- 
tion or equivalent. He is unfortunate who has never felt the 
fascination of the frontier; the temptation of unknown and 
mysterious solitudes; the exultation of helping to build a 
State; of forming its institutions, and giving direction to its 
career. 

Kansas, in its rudimentary stage, extended west six hun- 
dred and fifty-eight miles to the crest of the Rocky Mountains, 
the eastern boundary of Utah. By subsequent amputation 
and curtailment it was shorn to its present narrow limits of 
fifty-two million acres; three thousand square miles in excess 
of the entire area of New England. Denver, Manitou, Pueblo, 
Pike's Peak, and Cripple Creek are among the treasures which 
the State-makers of 1859, like the base Indian richer than all 
his tribe, threw unconsciously away. 

Thirty years ago, along the eastern margin of the grassy 
quadrangle which geographers called Kansas, the rude fore- 
fathers of Atchison, Leavenworth, Wyandotte, Lawrence, and 
Topeka slept in the interv^als of their strife with the pet- 
ty tyrants of their fields, and beyond their western horizon 
the rest was silence, solitude, and the wilderness, to the Rio 



486 John JamES Ingalls. 

Grande, to the Yellowstone, to the vSierra Nevada ; like the lone- 
ly steppes of Turkestan and Tartary ; inhabited by wandering 
tribes whose occupation was war, whose pastime was the chase ; 
pastured for untold centuries by the roaming herds that fol- 
lowed the seasons in their recurring migrations from the Arctic 
Circle to the Gulf. 

It has been sometimes obscurely intimated that the typical 
Kansan lacks in reserA'e, and occasionally exhibits a tendency 
to exaggeration in dwelling upon the development of the State 
and the benefits and burdens of its citizenship. Censorious 
scoffers, actuated by envy, jealousy, malignity, and other evil 
passions, have hinted that he imduly vauntelh himself; that he 
brags and becomes vainglorious; thai he is given to bounce, 
tall talk, and magniloquence. 

There have not been wanting those who afiirm that he 
magnifies his calamities as well as his blessings, and desires 
nothing so much as to have the name of Kansas in any capac- 
ity always in the ears and mouths of men. 

Such accusations are well calculated to make the judicious 
grieve. They result from a misconception of the man and his 
environment. 

The normal condition of the genuine Kansan is that of shy 
and sensitive diflidence. He suffers from excess of modesty. 
He blushes too easily. There is nothing he dislikes so much 
as to hear himself talk. He hides his light under a bushel. 
He keeps as near the tail-end of the procession as possible. 
He never advertises. He bloweth not his own horn, and is 
indifferent to the band-wagon. 

He is oppressed by the vast responsibility of being an 
inhabitant of a commonwealth so immeasurably superior in 



Kansas. / 487 

all the elements of present glory, in all the prophecies of future 
renown, to his inferior companions. 

To be a denizen of a vStatc that surpasses all other commu- 
nities as Niagara excels all other cataracts, as well as the sun 
transcends all other luminaries, imposes obligations that ren- 
der levity impossible. 

The every-day events of Kansas would be marvels else- 
where; our platitudes w^ould be panegyrics; the trite and 
commonplace are unknown. It is impossible to overestimate 
the value of citizenship in a State that sent more soldiers into, 
the Union armies than it had voters when Sumter fell; that 
exceeded all quotas without draft or bounty; that had the 
highest rate of mortality upon the field of battle. That a State 
so begotten and nurtured should be as indomitable in peace as 
it was invincible in war, was inevitable. Its gestation was 
heroic. It represented ideas and principles; conscience, pat- 
riotism, duty; the "unconquerable mind and freedom's holy 
flame." 

No other State encountered such formidable obstacles of 
Nature and Fortune. Our disasters and catastrophes have 
been monumental. Swarms of locusts eclipsing the sun in 
their flight, whose incredible voracity left the forests, and 
the orchards, and the fields of June as naked as December; 
drouths changing the sky to brass and the earth to iron ; siroc- 
cos that in a day devastated provinces and reduced thousands 
from comfort to penury — these and the other destructive 
agencies of the atmosphere have been met by a courage that 
no danger could daunt, and by a constancy unshaken by 
adversity. 

The statistics of the census tables are more eloquent than 
the tropes and phrases of the rhetorician. The story of Kansas 



488 John JamES Ingalls. 

needs no reinforcement from the imagination. Its arithmetic 
is more dazzling than poetry, and the historian is compelled 
to be economical of truth and parsimonious in his recital 
of facts, in order not to impose too great a strain upon the 
■capacity of human credulity. 

Notwithstanding the mishaps of husbandry and the fatali- 
lies of Nature, it is a moderate and conservative statement 
that no community ever increased so rapidly in population, 
^vealth, and civilization, nor gained so great an aggregate in so 
brief a time as the State of Kansas. There is no other State 
where the rewards of industry have been so ample, and the 
•conditions of prosperity so abundant, so stable, and so secure 
as here. 

It is a distinctly American State, with a trivial fraction of 
illiteracy, the largest school population, and but one detected 
icriminal to two thousand of its inhabitants. 

In popular estimation, Kansas is classified as an exclusively 
agricultural and pastoral region. It has harvested the largest 
Twheat crop ever gathered in any State, and will strive this year 
to break its own record. In corn, fruit, and small grains com- 
putation and measurement have been abandoned as super flu - 
- ous and impracticable. But these are only fragments of its 
material resources. 

Its fields of natural gas rival those of Indiana, Ohio, and 
'Pennsylvania. 

Its mines supply one-fourth of the zinc and much of the 
lead of the world. 

Its deposits of bituminous coal are inexhaustible. 

Vast areas are underlaid with petroleum. 

Its salt mines are richer than those of Michigan or New 
Tork. 



Kansas. 



489 



Its treeless and unwatered plains sent the biggest walnut 
log to the World's Fair, and have a subterranean flow that is 
capable of irrigating an area more fertile and extensive than 
the valley of the Nile. The indescribable beauty of the pal- 
aces of the Exposition, with their white domes and pinnacles, 
and statues and colonnades, and terraces and towers, came 
from the cement quaries of the Saline and Smoky Hill. 

And this is but the dawn. We stand in the vestibule of 
the temple. Much less than one-half the surface of the State 
has been broken by the plough. Its resources have been 
imperfectly explored. It has developed at random. Science 
will hereafter reinforce the energies of Nature, and the achieve- 
ments of the past will pale into insignificance before the com- 
pleted glory of the century to come. 

Atchison, May 10, 1896. 



A PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERVIEW. 



[The following photographic interview with Senator John 
James Ingalls. of Kansas, which was secured exclusively for 
and appears exclusively in The Sunday World, is notable in 
many respects. 

It is the first interview of the kind that has ever appeared 
in American journalism. The instantaneous camera reinforces 
the stenographer's pencil in a degree unknown before in the 
newspapers or magazines of this country. The reproductions 
of the photographs give an accurate representation of the 
characteristic attitudes of the Senator during the interview. 

The subject matter of the inters- iew is in itself of exceptional 
interest. There is not a dull paragraph in these pages. Sen- 
ator Ingalls' notable utterances as to the continental future 
of the Republic and the coming empire of the West ; his treat- 
ment of the present political problems ; his raps at the Democ- 
racy; estimates of Cleveland and Harrison; theories of polit- 
ical methods; observations on labor and capital, socialism, 
religion, and the future of the human race — are all of intense 
interest. It is needless to state that the interview is packed 
with bright epigrams and spiced with wit, satire, and sarcasm, 
for evervbody, of course, will read it from beginning to end. 

It is only just to Senator Ingalls to state that this interview 
was especially solicited by The Sunday World, and that his.. 



490 



A Photographic Interview. 491 

consent to the experiment was obtained only after considerable 
persuasion. — Editor.] 

"Ingalls Is Going to Speak." 

Senator John James Ingalls, of Kansas, is one of the most 
prominent and, in some respects, the most interesting man in 
public life. He may have trodden the pathway of error ever 
so much ; his public acts may have been liable to adverse crit- 
icism; his sayings may have been at times misleading, incon- 
sistent and wrong, but they have always been vigorous and 
epigrammatic. 

He is incapable of expressing a thought in a commonplace 
way or of saying a dull thing. And that is why The World 
asked him to submit to a photographic-interviewing process, 
which is a novelty without precedent in American journalism. 
No senator in the present generation has attracted by his 
speeches such full attendance on the floor of the Senate Cham- 
ber and such overflowing crowds in the galleries. To have 
every Senator present in his seat, and to have the public gal- 
leries and even the corridors crowded with eager listeners, it is 
only necessary to have it known beforehand that "Ingalls is 
going to speak." 

The Standing of Senator Ingalls in His Party. 
As President pro tempore of the Senate during the period 
of the Democratic administration in the executive departments 
of the Government, Senator Ingalls occupied the highest posi- 
tion within the gift of the Republican party, and as permanent 
President pro tempore now, with the Vice-President of the 
United States alive, he not only occupies the highest position 
to which the Senate can elett one of its members, but also 



492 John James Ixgalls. 

wears an honor which was never before conferred upon any 
Senator. 

The Senator is not a rich man. That is the reason why, 
they say, he has given up the house he used to tenant on 
Capitol Hill, and has gone with his family to a respectable 
but modest boarding-house in the West End. He may be a 
poor man, but he is as proud as Lucifer. He pays no homage 
to any millionaire because he is a millionaire. He is one of 
the most radical of Republican partisans, but no man breaks 
through the restraints of party discipline more fearlessly or 
more freely when he feels he is right. His temperament is 
critical, his nature is combative, and he glories in a fight. 

A ViVISECTIONIST WITH INTENSE HaTES AND LOVES. 

In debate with an opponent he is merciless. As a critic of 
contemporary statesmen, he is a vivisect ionist. His hates are 
as pronounced and numerous as his loves. But he is not an 
ill-natured man, as some people seem to think. He is not 
given much to levity or joking, but he likes to laugh occasion- 
ally and seems to find pleasure in making other people laugh. 

On the whole, notwithstanding what has been frequently 
called "that knout of a tongue" of his, he seems to take more 
pleasure in seeing a friend laugh than an enemy weep. There 
is more innocent amusement in him than the casual observer 
would observe. He is a thorough Bohemian of the intellectual 
kind, and those who know him best say that he has something 
of the poet and the naturalist in his temperament. 

Fond of Poetry and Flowers. 

Mrs. Ingalls says he has written very pretty poetry. In 
the summer-time he is certainly fond of sauntering through 



A Photographic Interview. 493 

Capitol Park in the afternoon after the Senate has adjourned, 
examining the flowers and bushes. In the United States Sen- 
ate he has not more than three or four seniors in length of sen- 
atorial service, and in the power "the applause of listening sen- 
ates to command" not a single superior; but he is still proud 
of his early work as a newspaper man. 

The new house where the Senator is at present boarding is 
on H Street, within half a block of the Shorehani, the Vice- 
President's new hotel, and within a couple of blocks of The 
World bureau. It is a house with a history. A few years ago 
the Court of Alabama Claims sat there, and since then it was 
the abode of the Jefferson Club, which is now defunct. It has 
gone through so many changes that its best friends wouldn't 
know it either within or without. 

Calling on Senator Ingalls at His Boarding-House. 

The Senator is only one of many boarders, but he has a 
modest suiie of apartments on the ground floor, and when the 
Sunday World interviewer, with the instantaneous photogra- 
pher, called upon him, he looked comfortable, although very 
busy. Whether at his lodgings or at the Capitol, he always 
has from one to half a dozen stenographers and typewriters 
engaged. Mrs. Ingalls attends to most of the entertainment 
of those who make merely friendly or sentimental calls. But 
the Sunday World interviewer and his artistic companion were 
entertained by the Senator himself, as the sequel will show. 

The Arrangements fcir the Photographic Inthrvhcw. 

With unfeigned reluctance on the part of the vSenator, but 
with commensurate persistency on the part of ihv newspaper 
man, the interview had been arranged for in advance. I lu- 



494 John James Ingalls. 

agreement was that the Senator should ignore altogether the 
presence of the photographer, who was to be permitted to 
make as many instantaneous pictures as he chose and just 
whenever he felt inclined. 



THE INTERVIEW. 

(Copyright, 1890, by the Press Publishing Company, the New York World.) 

"How are you?" said the vScnator, heartily, offering his 
hand to the visitors, who had just been ushered into his parlor, 
and there was a quizzical smile on his face and a merry twinkle 
in his eye, as if to say: "Well, yoti pair of rascals, you have 
come to play tricks on me." 

But he had promised to participate in the experiment, and 
he didn't flinch. 

"We are here, Senator, to receive from you all the wisdom 
that you are willing to impart to the world on public affairs in 
general ; and in order that you may have no reason to complain 
of the inaccuracy of the reporter, we are prepared to give you 
the benefit of all that stenography and photography combined 
can do to represent you fairly." 

Interviewers vs. Political Commentators. 

' ' I cannot say, gentlemen, that I have ever had much occa- 
sion to complain of the inaccuracy of the newspaper inter- 
viewers," said Mr. Ingalls. "The newspaper interviewer gen- 
erally makes a pretty accurate report. Like other men in pub- 
lic life, I have at times been misrepresented in the papers; 
but these misrepresentations do not, as a rule, originate in the 
interviewer's department. It is the editorial writer and the 



A Photographic Interview. 495 

political commentator that public men have most reason to 
complain of. But, everything considered, we haven't much 
reason to complain at all." 

"In the pictorial branch of the interview, at all events, 
Senator, we could not misrepresent you if we would ; the appa- 
ratus, you know, cannot lie." 

"Well. I am very glad to have your word for that. For the 
rest of it, I can only place myself in your hands. I am at your 
mercy. If vou do not treat me fairly, you will only forfeit my 
good opinion. And now, gentlemen, may I ask on what sub- 
ject you desire me to express my views?" 

"Is not the Government, Senator, interfering now more 
than it formerly did with what are usually regarded as the 
private affairs of individuals?" 

The Government's Disregard of the Individu.\l. 

"Yes," said the Senator, "it begins to appear as if individ- 
uals had no rights or no private business which the Govern- 
ment was bound to respect. The injustice of society and the 
inequality of conditions have given an enormous impulse to 
the idea of nationalism, the control of all economic agencies by 
the direct interposition of the Government. This is the logical 
reaction from individualism, on which our system was founded. 
The hope that political equality would result in the destruction 
of poverty and in the social fraternity has not been realized. 
There are larger private fortunes, there is greater political 
power in fewer hands; in other words, there is more tyranny 
in the Republic than in a monarchy. The strongest succeeds 
more rapidly and more readily here because, liberty being com- 
mon to all, there are no restraints and limitations to overcome. 
The demand now is, therefore, not that all shall be free, but 



496 John James Ingalls. 

that all shall be restrained from the full exercise of their fac- 
ulties and from the enjoyment of their acquisitions." 
"Will the supply be equal to the demand, Senator?" 

The Senator's Gentle Sarcasm. 

"There have been more marked concessions in this direction 
during the last decade, and the success of the experiments has 
been so notable that future movement in the same direction 
is not improbable. When the Government takes control of 
the agencies of society, we shall be virtuous, contented, and 
happy — just as we now all have gilt-edged butter under the 
oleomargarine law, reduced freight and passenger rates under 
the interstate commerce law, and pure and non-partisan pol- 
itics under the Civil Ser\'ice law." 

"Talking about purity in politics, Senator, I suppose you 
hold that whatever political purity may exist belongs exclu- 
sively to the Republican party?" 

The Will of the People Hampered. 

"With the possible exception of the two terms of Wash- 
ington," the Senator replied, "there has not been an absolutely 
fair, free, and impartial expression of the deliberate will of the 
people in the Presidential election since the foundation of the 
Government. I doubt if there ever will be. Patronage will 
allure the ambitious, force will coerce the timid, demagogism 
will gull the credulous, fraud will rob the weak, money will 
buy the mercenary." 

"Is it to be ever thus, Senator?" 

Do Political Ends Justify the Means? 
"The purification of politics is an iridescent dream. Gov- 
ernment is force. Politics is a battle for supremacy. Parties 



A Photographic Interview. 497 

are the armies. The Decalogue and the Golden Rule have no 
place in a political campaign. The object is success. To 
defeat the antagonist and dispel the party in power is the 
purpose. The Republicans and Democrats are as irrecon- 
cilably opposed to each other as were Grant and Lee in the 
Wilderness. They use ballots instead of guns, but the strug- 
gle is as unrelenting and desperate and the result sought for 
the same. In war it is lawful to deceive the adversary, to 
hire Hessians, to purchase mercenaries, to mutilate, to kill, to 
destroy. The commander who lost a battle through the activ- 
ity of his moral nature would be the derision and jest of history. 
This modem cant about the corruption of politics is fatiguing 
in the extreme. It proceeds from the tea-custard and sylla- 
bub dilettanteism, the frivolous and desultory sentimentalism 
of epicenes like — " 

"Like whom, Senator?" 

"Oh! you can fill in the names yourself — or else from the 
cheap and brazen hypocrites like Thingimmy, the greatest 
confidence-man and bunco-steerer of modern Democracy." 
"And who is Thingimmy, Senator?" 
"Oh! I fancy the readers of The World can guess." 
"On the whole, you haven't a very good opinion of modern 
Democrac}', Senator ? ' ' 

A Caustic Opinion of the Democr.\cy. 

"The Democratic party, having neither conscience, con- 
victions, nor defined principles, inevitably allies itself with dis- 
content, and is arrayed against social order. It is strongest 
where public and private morality is weakest. Its citadels 
are in the South, where society is distinctly feudal, and in the 
great cities, where the ignorant and criminal elements are most 



498 John James Ingali^s. 

energetic. It has no beliefs, maxims, or formulas. Its creed 
is the instruction of Jefferson — that in a popular government 
wealth, intelligence, and morality are ultimately no match 
for numbers. For twenty-five years its only policy has been 
to complain, to oppose, to deny, to protest, and ultimately 
to acquiesce in what the Republicans have done. So when 
Cleveland came in, being without plans, purpose, or policv, 
his administration floundered pitiably both in domestic and 
foreign affairs, was contemptible in many things and feeble 
in all, and left absolutely no impression whatever upon history 
except in the matter of vetoing bills for pensions and public 
buildings. It followed Republican methods and carried on 
Republican ideas, so that when Harrison was inaugurated, it 
was as if a stitch had been dropped merely, and we have kept 
right along with our work." 

"Do you imagine, Senator, that .Mr. Cleveland will be 
nominated again by the Democrats for the Presidency?" 

The; Senator Says Cleveland Will Be Renominated. 

"Oh, yes, Cleveland will be the nominee in 1892, even if 
New York should be divided or against him. This is inevit- 
able. It is written. He will be first, and the rest nowhere. 
Democracy never had such an ideal exponent and represent- 
ative. His dull, heavy, ponderous, wooden platitudes, labori- 
ously written out and committed to memory; his stolid and 
shallow conceit; his affectation of wisdom, purity, and patri- 
otism, and what he calls his 'solemn sense of duty,' impress 
the average Democrat with a feeling of reverence like that 
which the Chinese laundryman feels for his Joss." 

"Senator, you have said that the Democratic administra- 
tion left no impression on history. What impression have the 
recent Republican administrations left?" 



A Photographic Ixterview. 499 

We Have Made No History for Twelve Years. 

"I admit." the Senator replied, "that we are a nation 
which for the past dozen years has had no history. The 
whole career of our country as a nation has been one of drift- 
ing. There have been no vigorous or distinctive exhibitions 
of original statecraft. We have been going through an age 
of material development. The national energy, instead of 
being shown in the direction of public affairs, has confined 
itself to the colonization of desert spaces and the building up 
of new States in the wilderness. The public service and pub- 
lic men, as a rule, have not kept pace with the material devel- 
opment of the country. I do not mean to say that we have 
no great men, but the public service does not command the 
greatest, because the highest rewards of intellectual activity 
and more satisfactory equivalents are found in other voca- 
tions. Public life has degenerated into a species of servi- 
tude, and the inevitable tendency is toward mediocrity and 
pusillanimity." 

"What is vour idea, Senator, of a definite American policy?" 

A CONTINEXT FOR THE REPUBLIC. 

"The American policy should have for its object the unifi- 
cation of the continent. The Polar vSea should be the north- 
ern boundary of the Republic, and the southern boundary 
should be the Interoceanic Canal. Look at the existing 
conditions. We have practically reached the limit of our 
agricultural domain. We have but 10,000,000 acres of arable 
lands left. We are approaching that period spoken of l)y 
Macaulay as dangerous to republican institutions, when the 
vast migrations to these undeveloped regions will have ceased, 



500 John James Ingalls. 

and when the artisans and toiling masses concentrated in the 
large cities will have no outlet for their surplus numbers and 
no demand for their labor. I might say the American idea is 
hemispherical rather than continental. We have now a con- 
tinuous line of railway to Mexico. The next step will be an 
iron high\yay in the valley of the Amazon. I expect to see 
the valleys of the Mississippi and the Amazon linked together 
by the great agency of modern civilization. The overflow of 
population will thus find peaceful fields of profitable effort." 
"So you think, Senator, that after a while the whole bound- 
less hemisphere will be ours ? ' ' 

Then We'll Have a Hemisphere. 
"I do; continent first, then hemisphere. The idea is growing 
rapidly in this country, especially in the West, where the polit- 
ical power of the Republic is lodged. Under the readjustment 
of political forces which has occurred in accordance with the 
last census, the seat of political power has been transferred 
west of the Alleghany Mountains. That great region extend- 
ing from Manitoba to the Gulf of Mexico, and sweeping across 
the basin of the Mississippi from the Alleghanies to the Rocky 
Mountains, homogeneous in population, geographically unified 
and with common interests politically, socially, and econom- 
ically, represent to-day the political power of this continent. 
It has a majority of the aggregate representation in the lower 
house of Congress, and, with the admission of the new States, 
a majority of the votes in the Senate and in the Electoral 
College." 

The West and South Invincible. 
"The interests of the West and South are identical, and 
they should be unified. Their alliance upon all matters afi"ect- 



A Photographic Interview. 501 

ing their national welfare is inevitable. If they coalesce, they 
will be invincible. We shall hold the purse and wield the 
sword of the Nation, and we shall use them, not for oppression, 
but for justice. The valleys, of the Mississippi and the Mis- 
souri, with their tributaries from the Yello.wstone to the Gulf, 
form a magnificent empire that must have a homogeneous 
population and a common destiny." 

"There are people who would be surprised to learn that 
Senator Ingalls regarded the South as fit to associate with the 
West or to share the same destiny," observed the Smiday World 

representative. 

"It is not my fault that I am sometimes misunderstood," 

said the Senator. Then he added, reflectively: 

Sections Estranged by Political Factions. 
"These great communities that were only separated by 
the system of slavery have since its destruction been alien- 
ated bv factions that have estranged them only to prey upon 
them and to maintain political supremacy for their alienation. 
Unfriendlv legislation has imposed intolerable burdens upon 
their energies, invidious discrimination has been made against 
their products, unjust tariffs have repressed their industries. 
While vast appropriations have been made to protect the At- 
lantic and the Lakes, and to improve the navigation of the in- 
considerable streams, the Mississippi's waters are left choked 
with its drifting sands. Eads with his daring energies under- 
took at his own risk the gigantic labor of compelling the great 
stream to dredge its own channel to the sea." 

The East Will Then Be an Appendage. 
"The ultimate coalition of all political forces of this section 
is inevitable. The West will then secure its emancipation 



502 John James Ingalls. 

from the control of the Atlantic and Pacific appendages with 
justice — in fact, I might say with more justice than they liave 
hitherto sho^^'n to us." 

"Then the West, you think, Senator, is to be more potent 
than the East in working out the destiny of the Republic?" 

The Star of Empire Already Gone Westward. 

"Intellectual energy of this country lias already trans- 
ferred itself to the West. The West is now the theatre of the 
combined energetic and potential forces of Xew England and 
the Middle States. At this moment there are more people of 
Connecticut ancestry living on the Western Reserve in Ohio 
than you will find in the State of Connecticut. Tlie future 
triumphs of the Anglo-Saxon race will be accomplished in the 
Valley of the Mississippi, a vast empire in itself, and not in the 
valley of the Thames or the Hudson, or of the Delaware. The 
people at large very little know what a tremendous imdercur- 
rent of thought, involving grand ideas, is moving with irre- 
sistible force throughout the whole length and breadth of the 
West. One of the elements of public thought in this great 
region is the unification of the continent." 

"As a Western man, Senator, you have taken a lively inter- 
est in the question of transportation. From an ironical remark 
you made, I should suppose that you do not find things nuich 
improved by the interstate commerce law." 

The Constant Aim of the Senator's Life. 

"To assist and stimulate the development and improve- 
ment of the vast water system of the interior basin of the con- 
tinent, extending between the Alleghany and the Rockv Moimt- 



A Photographic Ixterview. 505 

ains, from Maine to the Gulf, has been one constant aim and 
endeavor of my public life. 

"I have no sympathy with the political economists who 
would array the poor against the rich, with the empty and 
sonorous demagogism which asserts that there is an irrepres- 
sible conflict between capital and labor, and that would make 
indiscriminate war upon corporations as the natural enemies 
of the people; but we are confronted with many economic 
problems, chief among which is that of cheap transportation, 
and I believe its solution lies not in the representative legisla- 
tion, but in competition between water lines and railroads. 
Under the constitutional power of Congress to regulate com- 
merce between the vStates, I have no doubt of the authority of 
the Government to assume either partial or complete control 
of all the great trunk lines of transportation and to regulate 
the burdens that are imposed upon the productive labor of the 
country." 

"How can that be accomplished?" 

"It can best be done by establishing uniform rates of 
freight, so as to prevent unjust discriminations between way 
and through carriers, or by an intelligent system of internal 
improvement, opening near or improving old routes of trans- 
portation to the seaboard." 

To Solve the Transportation Problem. 
"The Atlantic communities, by their superior thrift and 
vigilance, have secured advantages which have enabled them 
to dictate terms to the producers of the West. They have 
constructed thousands of miles of railroads and watered the 
stock by countless millions of dollars, upon which the dividends 
are paid from the exorbitant rate that the farmers of the Mis- 



504 John James Ingalls. 

sissippi Valley are compelled to pay for carrying food, without 
which Eastern commerce would languish and the population 
starve." 

The Power of the Railroad Moxarchs. 

"The great carrying business of the country is under the 
absolute control of a few persons, upon whose edicts depends 
the prosperity of the Nation. By their combination they are 
enabled to fix the price, control the supplies, create fictitious 
demand or artificial scarcity, and thus disturb the whole basis 
of values in the commercial world. With daring admirable 
genius those monarchs have devised, and with inconceivable 
energy they have constructed, a system of highways the most 
wonderful known to man." 

"Your friendship for the waterways does not interfere with 
your admiration for the greatness of the railroad?" 

Miracles of Engineering Skill. 
"The capitalists of Boston have bored a tunnel five miles 
long through a mountain of granite at an expense of $20,000,000 
to reach the region without ascending an insignificant eleva- 
tion of 1500 feet, and to shorten the distance but forty-three 
miles. New York has the Erie and the Central, with their 
•connections; Philadelphia and Baltimore, other independent 
lines, built at stupendous cost, climbing mountains by inclined 
planes or piercing them by tunnels, crossing great rivers by 
'viaducts that are miracles of engineering skill, all to persuade 
our produce to flow to their respective markets. If they should 
share the expense of transportation with the producers, then 
there would be less cause for complaint ; but the rates are es- 
tablished high enough to pay interest on the bonds, dividends 
on the stock, the cost of operation, deterioration and waste 



A Photographic Interview. 505 

of plant, and extravagant salaries to swarms of ornamental 
officials. 

"Those who are familiar with the railroad legislation and 
jurisprudence of the last dozen years, and reflect that these 
gigantic expenditures are derived from the revenues of the 
roads, can readily perceive why corn that may be worth $1.00 
in New York in ordinary years only brings 20 cents in Missouri 
and Kansas. 

"But Nature, so bountiful to us in all things, has not left 
us without peaceful methods of redress. It is not necessary 
.that we should use the railroads of Eastern capitalists nor pay 
tribute into the coffers of Eastern merchants." 

"You mean the water cure, I suppose. Senator?" 

"The water cure is what I mean. Water is a great blessing 
when put to its proper uses," said the Senator, smiling. "This 
great valley, the great grain empire of the earth^ has no natural 
connection with the Atlantic seaboard. Its rivers run south 
and south flow the currents of its atmosphere. The gloomy 
mountain ranges that wall this valley interpose their external 
obstacles to this enforced intercourse, 

"We have an unequal S5^stem of movable highwavs, graded 
with a facility of descent unattainable by the skill of the engin- 
eer. It crosses in defiles to be spanned by costly viaducts of 
massive masonry. There is no right-of-way to be secured 
from avaricious proprietors of the soil ; no barriers to be pierced 
by tunnels or ascended by the laborious engines dragging their 
reluctant trains. 

"No expensive appliances of machinery are required lo 
provide the power to move the vehicles that require transpor- 
tation. Nature has furnished the motive power in the momen- 
tum of the irresistible current that flows from the melting 



5o6 John JamEs Ingalls. 

snows of the North, gathering force and vohitne as it descends 
through thousands of fertile leagues, its waves now almost 
unmoved by the keel from the mountain to the sea. 

"These rivers and their innumerable tributaries, twenty 
thousand miles in length, and draining the great food-producing 
area of the world, are the natural outlet for all the production 
of the valleys through which they flow. They offer a perpet- 
ual invitation to the farmers of the West to avail themselves 
of their cheap and accessible transportation." 

"Senator, it is the first time I have ever heard you grow so 
eloquent over water." The Senator laughed. 

"I rather expected that," he said. "I thought I was giving 
you a little too much water. Well, I '11 be merciful, and give 
you relief by changing the subject. In the meantime, let me 
add that already, by the improvement of the mouth of the 
Mississippi, New Orleans has become accessible for sea-going 
vessels of the largest tonnage. By the removal of the tem- 
porary obstructions and the improvement of the channel, it is 
not improbable that men, now living, will see ocean steamers 
from Liverpool and London ascending the Mississippi and dis- 
charging and receiving cargoes at the port of St. Louis." 

'Ts demagogism necessary to succeed in politics?" 

The Ways of the Skillful Political Navigator. 

"That depends on what you mean by the term. Occa- 
sional surrender of political judgment to public opinion is pru- 
dent, and respectful deference to widespread error is now and 
then expedient. It is always well to keep the Pole-star in 
view, but when the wind is dead ahead, a skillful navigator will 
either tack or drop anchor." 

"Our destiny, Senator, you say, is continental?" 



A Photographic Interview. 507 

"Our destiny is continental. The :\Ionroe doctrine is writ- 
ten on ever}^ map of the United States. The tendency to 
absorption is irresistible. The process will be peaceful, but 
our northern boundary must be the Arctic Circle and our 
southern the Isthmus Canal." 

"And in the way of our continental destiny. Senator, shall 
we have a war with England or any other power?" 

Our Only Enemy England, and She 's Afraid of Us. 

"War? No, we shall have no wars. A\'ith whom should we 
fight? We have no dangerous neighbors and no dependencies, 
nor colonial possessions. We are too powerful and too neces- 
sary to the sustenance of mankind. We are at once the most 
pacific and most martial of the nations, but our relations 
Avith France are those of fraternity; with Germany and Aus- 
tria, of cordial amity. \A"e have no enemy but England, and 
she is too vulnerable in every quarter of the globe and on every 
sea to go to war with us. We have an unsettled score with 
Great Britain for her malevolent insolence, but nothing is so 
improbable as war. Hence, there is no need of costly arma- 
ments. Our standing army is only a national police force, and 
the demand for a navy comes from contractors, maritime cit- 
ies whose pusillanimous populations pretend to believe that 
their accumulations are in danger from foreign ironclads, and 
from communities adjacent to the ship and navy yards who 
desire to profit by such enterprise." 

The Wasting of Millions on the Xavv. 

"In ten vears the ships we are building will be useless, 
either for attack or defense. The millions we are spending 
might as well be with the gentleman whose name I ha\-e for- 



5o8 John James Ingalls. 

gotten — at the bottom of the sea. With every industry de- 
pressed and a general outcry for economy in administration, 
in a time of profound peace, we are dispatching costly fleets, at 
an enormous daily expenditure, on luxurious pleasure excur- 
sions, to play spectacular parts in the pageantry of the sea, 
exchanging entertainments and hospitalities with other poten- 
tates; drinking and carousing in foreign ports, upon the pre- 
text that such performances are necessary for the national 
honor and the national defense. I believe a Democratic ad- 
ministration clamis the distinction of inaugurating the policy 
for squandering our resources under the theory that we must 
be prepared to protect ourselves against some unknown danger. 
It is as absurd as it must be for the Secretary of the Navy to 
start out on his morning walk down the Avenue with a Win- 
chester on his shoulder, a pair of revolvers in his belt, and a 
Bowie-knife in each boot, upon the idea that some ruflfian 
might attack him before reaching the Capitol." 

"Senator, would you mind giving us your estimate of the 
administration of President Harrison?" 

Too Early to Give a Verdict on Harrison. 

"Harrison's administration has been much more success- 
ful thus far than Cleveland's was at the end of his first year. 
Cleveland satisfied nobody, and was openly and unsparingly 
denounced by his party organs. It is a great mistake for a 
President to suppose that by neglecting his friends he can pro- 
pitiate his enemies. Cleveland got no support from the Repub- 
lican party by allowing Republicans to remain in office, and he 
alienated many Democrats. The most formidable error of 
Harrison is in regarding himself bound to follow a pernicious 
precedent. Cleveland saw his blunder a year too late to enable 



A Photographic Interview. 



509 



him to recover. Most people are human, and prefer that reform 
should be tried on their enemies rather than on themselves. 
And if President Harrison acts on this line, he will have no 
trouble. It is too early to predict what the verdict will be. 
The statistics do not exist. Two years hence will be soon 
enough. He has had a 'rocky' time so far, but has acquitted 
himself with dignity, courage, and prudence. His tempera- 
ment is dispassionate, but his ideals are high, and I am confi- 
dent that he will grow constantly in public estimation and 
approval." 

"As President pro tempore of the Senate for several years, 
your interpretation of that clause of the Constitution which 
relates to the making of a quorum in either house of Congress 
would be read with interest, in view of the recent contest in the 
House of Representatives," the interviewer suggested. 

"As President pro tempore of the United States Senate 
now," replied the Senator, "I must decline at present to at- 
tempt any interpretation of the clause." 

"You have never, I think, vSenator, been what is called a 
strict constructionist of the Constitution?" 

Not a Strict Constructionist. 

"That question I cannot answer better," said the Senator, 

"than by referring to some remarks which I had occasion to 

make on the subject in the course of debate in the Senate the 

other day." And he turned over a file of the "Congressional 

Record" till he came to the report of a speech, from which he 

read as follows: 

"Mr. President, the people of the United States have a reasonable 
degree of respect for the Constitution, but they are not afraid of it. .\ 
Constitution is a growth, not a manufacture, and the Constitution of 
1890, by reason of the operation of the will of the people who made it, is 



5IO John James Ingalls. 

a vastly different instrument from the Constitution of 1789. Its authors 
would not know it. They made it for specific purposes, not for the object 
of enabling country lawyers to devise definitions, not for the purpose of 
interposing barriers and obstacles to the will of the people of the United 
States. The Constitution was made, not by the States, but by the people 
of the United States—' 

"And for what? 

" ' In order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure do- 
mestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general 
welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.' " 

Something More Sacred Than Constitutions. 

"The Constitution is perpetually invoked by the narrow, 
rigid, and illiberal constructionists to interpose an insuperable 
barrier against every effort to better the condition of the peo- 
ple. The people of the United States do not regard the Consti- 
tution with superstition or awe. They know that there are 
some things more venerable than charters, more sacred than 
constitutions, and those are the rights and the privileges which 
charters and constitutions are ordained to establish and main- 
tain. At every stage of national growth and progress we have 
been met by the interposition of those minute and insectivo- 
rous propositions that the Constitution was a barrier against 
the determined and resolute will of the people." 

Can Be Made to Fit All Emergencies. 

"I recollect that there was a great demonstration that 
there was no power in the Constitution to coerce a State which 
saw fit to go out of the Union. But we found it ; we found 
it somewhere in its latent recesses — 'public welfare,' 'blessings 
of liberty,' wherever it might be, we found it. We are told 
that the abolition of slavery was without warrant in the Con- 
stitution, but we found the warrant, and when we found it 



A Photographic Interview. 511 

could not be done in the letter, it was amended by the sword. 
It is a fair warning to those who attempt to insist upon verbal 
and lingual interpretations against the will of the people, that 
whenever the elasticity, the capacity to carry out the wishes 
and the will of the people is not sufficient, there will always be 
found a way to amend it." 

The Senator's Best Speech. 

The Senator is modest in his way, and refuses to express 
any opinion as to the merits, relative or absolute, of any of his 
own efforts. Being asked which of all the notable addresses 
he ever delivered he likes best himself, he paused for a moment, 
seeming rather puzzled, but then an expression of relief came 
over his face, and, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, he 
answered, evasively: 

"I think Washington's Farewell Address was probably the 
best." 

This was a sly allusion to a rather unusual task which was 
imposed upon the Senator as presiding officer of the Senate on 
the anniversary of Washington's birthday two years ago. A 
proposition never made before and never repeated since was 
then put forward by Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts. It was 
that the anniversary should be celebrated by the Senate hav- 
ing the senators meet in the chamber at the usual hour to 
hear the presiding officer recite Washington's Farewell Address, 
and for no other business. 

It Was His Duty to Recite. 

The proposal was adopted almost unanimously b\- the Sen- 
ate, most of the senators agreeing to it out of pure deyilineiit. 
But Senator Hoar was very serious about it. as he always is 



512 John James Ingalls. 

about everything; and the situation was serious to Senator 
Ingalls, although it was ridiculous to most of his brethren. 
Senator Ingalls was presiding officer, and upon the presiding 
officer devolved the duty of giving the recitation. 

Senator Ingalls, according to the custom of the Senate, 
could have made any other senator presiding otlicer, tempora- 
rily, by simply designating him as such, and he was greatly 
tempted to call Senator Hoar to the chair for that occasion ; but, 
on thinking the matter over, he decided the other way. Any- 
thing in the shape of trickery or a practical joke in connection 
with the presiding officer's chair he could not seriously con- 
template; so when the morning of Washington's birthday came 
aroimd, and when the senators had assembled on the floors, 
and the public had crowded into the galleries to witness what 
they expected would be a circus, Ingalls was on hand with his 
copy of Washington's address. 

How THE Senator Read Washington's Farewell Address. 
Promptly on the reading of the order of the day, he began 
his recitation. Some of the senators were evidently prepared 
for a little gentle guying, and the crowds in the galleries were 
looking for lots of merriment; but it didn't come. Ingalls 
was as solemn as an owl, as cold as ice, as dignified as a statue, 
and from beginning to end of the recitation there wasn't any- 
thing in the chamber but the most marked attention and the 
most exemplary decorum. When it was all over, everybody 
seemed to be just as solemn as Ingalls had appeared at the 
beginning. 

Dignified in the Chair. A Fighter on the Floor. 

Ingalls on the floor has provoked and participated in some 
of the most exciting scenes that ever enlivened the chamber. 



A Photographic Interview. 513 

but there never has been anything but the most perfect order 
in the chamber with him in the chair. As presiding officer, he 
has exercised a wonderful control over the Senate and the 
audience in the galleries, while in debate on the floor he has 
raised the devil. 

Although he does not say so himself, it is pretty certain 
that the speech which gave the vSenator more solid comfort 
than any other he ever delivered was his celebrated one of 
March 25, 1886, in which, while indulging in his favorite pas- 
time of abusing ]\Ir. Cleveland, he gave the Mugwumps a furi- 
ous lashing. As he still stands by the sentiment then expressed, 
lie did not consider it necessary to give the interviewer any 
new experience of his estimate of the Civil Service reform. 

The Senator Says "Job" Is the Greatest Book. 

"What is the greatest book in the English language?" 
Senator Ingalls was asked. 

The Senator reflected a moment, then stepped over to a 
book-case, and, taking down a small Bible, turned over a few 
pages. "The book of Job," he said, "is the oldest and, in 
my judgment, the highest production of the human intellect. 
It is especially interesting because it shows that humanity 
at the dawn of history was engaged in considering the same 
problems that perplex us now — immortality, the existence of 
evil, the afflictions and misfortunes of the good in this world, 
and the prosperity of the wicked. We have made no progress 
in solving these problems. The barriers are insurmountable. 
The centuries are silent. The soul struggles, aspires, beats its 
wings against the bars, flutters, and disappears." 

"Is it within the capacity of statesmanship to give the 
poor a better chance and to make a more equal distribution of 



514 John James Ingalls. 

wealth? Is the world better than it was? Are the people hap- 
pier? Is religion growing or declining? \\i\\ poverty ever be 
extinguished?" 

But the World Is Constantly Growing Better. 

"This has been the great problem of the government since 
histor)^ began. The differences between men arc inherent. 
Some are thrifty, sagacious, industrious, sober, enterprising; 
others are dull, lazy, dissolute, and careless. Then we must 
admit there is something which, for want of a better name, we 
call luck, so that the dish is always right side up when it rains. 
All men cannot be rich, famous, happy. There is not enough 
to go around. But the discontented, the unfortunate, and the 
wretched attribute their calamities to everything else rather 
than to themselves. They blame society and government for 
their failure, and attribute the success of their competitors, 
to the injustice of statutes. All that legislation can do is la 
protect the weak from the oppression of the strong, the poor 
against the exactions of the rich; give them all equal opportu- 
nity, equal privilege, and an equal chance in the race of life. 
The world is steadily improving. The boundaries of human 
happiness are enlarging. The poorest artisan now has oppor- 
tunities for enjoyment, for improvement, for study, for cure in 
sickness, for the preservation of health, for the joy of living, 
that five centuries ago were beyond the reach of kings." 

The Senator's Conception of God. 

'Poverty will never be abolished, nor misery, nor pain, nor 
disease. They are inseparable from the state of humanity. 
Were all men contented and secure, progress would cease and: 
the race would expire. The age is essentially devout and 



A Photographic Ixthrvikw. ^,. 

religious. The mind has been largely emancip.t.d Innu super- 
stition and from creeds, and has entered upon an excursion 
that cannot be foretold, but that is certain to h. momentous. 
The authority of the Church has undoubtedlv been greatly 
weakened and impaired, but this does not implv that religion 
is retrograding. As the race advances, it clothes God with 
higher attributes and dignifies Him with more loftv functions, 
because it is capable of noble conceptions. The gloomv and 
exorable God of the Puritans has disappeared. He has been 
succeeded by a Supreme Being of infinite mercy, tenderness, 
and goodness; a ruler, a law-rnaker. a legislator, subject to 
limitations and restraints imposed by His own perfections." 

Looks for Another Christ axd Another Revelation. 
"There was a profound truth in the declaration of Voltaire, 
that if there was no God, it would be necessary for man to in- 
vent one. This was flippant and irreverent, perhaps, but true. 
God is indispensable. Man perceives this, and the higher his 
development the more distinct is his perception. The popu- 
larity of Ingersoll and his school is not an indication of infi- 
delity, but is rather the strongest evidence of the religious 
spirit of the times, its receptivity, its eagerness for instruction, 
its hunger and thirst for knowledge about what can never be 
known. No age has ever been so profoundly moved b\- the 
consideration of the problems of the hereafter as this, and I 
have no doubt that in response to the search for eternal truth 
another Christ will come and another revelation will !)e made." 

"What should be done with the Louisiana Lottery.^" 

The Lotterv Ulcer vShould Be Cai teri/.eu. 
"It is a plague-spot, a moral ulcer, that should be cauter- 
ized; it is a disgrace to our civilization that it is permitted to 



5i6 John James Ingalls. 

use the mails and the Post Office Department to debauch and 
plunder the Nation to the extent of $20,000,000 or $30,000,000 
every year.'' 

"How long will it be before the last pensioner connected 
with the late war for the Union becomes extinct? And how 
much will the Government then ha\-e paid to the pensioners of 
that war?" 

A $4,000,000,000 Estimate of the Total War Pensions. 

"According to the tables of mortality, the last surviving 
soldier of the war for the Union will expire between 1940 and 
1950, but the pension-roll will rapidly diminish before that 
time. Pensions to widows and dependent relatives will, how- 
ever, continue for a much longer period. Before the account 
is finally closed, I think the Government will have paid not 
less than four thousand million dollars." 

"Don't you think that some day the ex-Confederates will 
be admitted to the pension- rolls of the United vStates?" 

A Little Rap at the Democracv. 

The Senator paused to reflect, and his rather hard face 
melted into a playful smile as he answered: "It will not be 
surprising if some provision is ultimately made for pensioning 
the ex-Confederate soldiers should the Democratic party be 
restored to power." 

"Don't vou think that senators and representatives are 
poorly paid for their work?" 

"It is impossible for the Government to compete with the 
private employers in compensation for special services. Leg- 
islation is not an occult science and does not require unusual 
faculties nor extraordinarv attainments. The ordinarv bus- 



A Photographic Ixthrvii:\v. 517 

iness of Congress can be successfully conducted by the average 
merchant or lawyer. It affords opportunity for the exercise 
of the highest powers, but good, solid common sense and in- 
dustry are the essentials. The Government should only pay 
what is necessary to secure such services as are requisite for 
the performance of its work. 

"Salaries should be sufficient for decent support Pol- 
itics has been a favorite pursuit for men of ambition and en- 
ergy in all ages, and will probably continue to be for all time 
to come. But no one is compelled to dedicate himself to the 
public service. It is voluntary, and if the conditions are 
unsatisfactory, there is no obstacle to retirement. While it 
would be agreeable to receive more, my impression is that if 
salaries were doubled, expenses would be doubled, and the 
result would be the same. Probably a majoritv of both 
houses receive as much now as they could earn in any other 
capacity for the same amount of work." 

"Can Germany, Senator, manage to get along without Bis- 
marck? Will civilization and progress lose by Bismarck's re- 
tirement? Will Europe still have abler statesmen than Amer- 
ica? And will European statesmanship continue to have a 
greater influence than American statesmanship upon the des- 
tiny of nations?" 

No One Indispensable — Nor EvK.x Cleveland. 

"No man is indispensable. Lincoln died at 7 in the morn- 
ing, and at 10:30 the Government was running along as if he 
had never existed. Perhaps the country will sur\i\T the 
temporary silence and retirement of Grover Cleveland. So 
Germany will probably stagger along without Bismarck, al- 
though he is one of the most potential forces in I{ur<)i)ean 



5i8 John James Ingalls. 

politics. Brave men lived before Agamemnon, and whenever 
there is an emergency or a crisis, there is a leader. But the 
dominant power on the globe now is, and for centuries will 
continue to be, the United States of America. It is in the 
same arena that the finer conquests of civilization are to be 
accomplished." 

"Wouldn't it be betlcr if we had a restricted franchise, 
and what kind of qualification would apply — property, educa- 
tion, or length of residence?" 

Manhood Suffrage the Correct Thing. 

"To vourmain question I would answer: ideally, yes; prac- 
tically, no. Any excluded class in a popular government in- 
evitably becomes hostile. A citizen who is denied rights that 
others enjoy becomes a conspirator. Undoubtedly it would 
be better if every voter could read and write. So would it 
be better if every voter were healthy, moral, well-dressed, 
with a balance in the bank; but this is unattainable. Man- 
hood suffrage is the thing. There are plenty of men who 
are illiterate, yet good citizens; and lots of fellows who 
have money and can speak seven or eight languages who are 
scoundrels. 

"To make property or education the condition of suffrage 
and citizenship would be an absurdity. In addition to these 
considerations, any political party that should advocate such 
political restriction would incur the animosity from any quar- 
ter. So, with regard to any amendment of naturalization 
laws requiring long residence before foreigners could vote, un- 
less both parties should concur, neither would dare to take the 
initiative." 



A Photographic Interview. 



519 



Such a wide range of subjects having been covered, and 
the long Hst of notes of interrogation having been exhausted, 
not to mention the great draft made upon the Senator's time 
and patience, nothing was left for the interviewers to do but 
to thank the Senator for his courtesy, and depart. 

"I am in your hands," repeated Senator Ingalls, rising to 
see his visitors out. "And now, please, treat me consider- 
ately. If anything I have said will serve in any degree to 
facilitate your undertaking, it will be a great satisfaction to 
me to know it. 

"I hope that your experiment will meet with the success 
which your enterprise deserves. 

"Good-bye. Come again." 



LETTERS. 



Atchison, Kansas, 
Thanksgiving Evening, November 28, 1872. 
Dear Father: 

I found vour letter on my return from the United States 
Circuit Court at Topeka yesterday afternoon. It was my in- 
tention to have an old-fashioned celebration, for we rigidly 
adhere to all the traditions; but I woke in tlie night with 
a violent attack of sick headache, which enabled me only to 
take a cup of coffee for breakfast, and barely left me in a 
condition to join the family at dinner. We had a turkey of 
superb dimensions and cooked to perfection; potatoes, cran- 
berries, celery from our garden, macaroni with cheese, quinces 
and pears from California, fresh figs from your boxes, raisins 
from Malaga, filberts, almonds, cheese from Xemaha County, 
pound, fruit, and jelly cake, mince and pumpkin pie; so 
that you see we did not suffer in our lonely cabin upon the 
frontier in the far West. Frank was with us, and we talked 
over old times, and remembered you all, from one end of the 
continent to the other. It has always been a hope of mine to 
unite the entire family on some Thanksgiving Day, here in 
Kansas under my own roof. I am the eldest of the brood, and 
the first emigrant, and could accommodate a crowd as well as 
anv of them, and trust I may some time realize the anticipation. 

The children banqueted with us at discretion. They think 
vou grow figs as peaches grow in mv garden, and regard you 



Letters. 521 

as the beneficent genius of their tender years. Thev continue 
in remarkable health, and give unabated promise of excellence. 

My furnace is not yet in operation, but is in position, wait- 
ing the adjustment of the hot-air ducts. I think it will add to 
our comfort, as it certainly will conduce to the ease of the faith- 
ful Pendleton, who regards the fire-chamber capable of con- 
suming four-foot wood with sentiments akin to ecstasv. 

It has been very cold for a few days past, and the river is 
filled with floating ice that moves slowly southward, indicating 
that the current is gorged below. A strong north wind has 
been blowing all day, filling the air with clouds of vellow dust 
from the bars. 

Frank continues to grow in the graces and good opinion of 
all who know him. He has many extraordinary mental cliar- 
acteristics: self-possession, poise, command of his faculties, a 
temper serene and placable, and intellectual powers that are 
prophetic of future growth. He seems to have fine capacity 
for work, and an absence of enthusiasms and sensibilities, 
which go so far to make life endurable and successful. He is 
doing a great deal of outside work: visiting, calling upon the 
members of the church and congregation; and has the entire 
confidence of his people. 

I have thought much to-day of the long career of my life, 
which has been extended so long beyond my early anticipations, 
and rendered conspicuous by so many blessings which I am 
conscious I have not deser\^ed, and which I never hoped to 
enjoy. Standing upon the uplands of middle life, my child- 
hood and youth seem like the experiences of another planet; 
and though I have suffered nuich from the tortures of dis- 
turbed functions, diseased nerves, sensibilities unnaturally 
acute, the war in my members between the spirit and the flesh. 



52 2 John James Ingalls. 

the agonies of conflict between unconquerable appetites, pas- 
sions, impulses, and ambitions, and a conscience too sensitive 
to submit to moral anodynes, yet I have much to recall with 
gratitude to some Benign Power that has given me moderate 
measure of worldly success, a modest competence, and a reason- 
able assurance of the esteem of my fellows ; a happy home, 
and hopeful children, whom it shall be my chief care to teach 
to shun the errors that have been my bane. 

I have thought much, also, of that benevolent destiny that 
has protracted our existence as a family, unbroken through so 
many vears; that gave to us in our early years the benefit- 
and advantages of parental restraint and care, and has given 
to vou the opportunity of seeing the practical results of your 
anxietv and toil in the establishment of your children in repu- 
table positions in widely dissociated spheres in life. As time 
passes on, the burden of existence becomes more grievous: 
these anniversaries, once so bright and festal, grow ominous with 
shadows, and have a deep, sad, and solemn significance. Laden 
with the inexpressible pathos, the yearning regrets, the fare- 
wells of the past, its melancholy and its eternal pain, they also 
point with prophetic augury to that future, near or far, when 
anniversaries shall be no more. How happy they who live so 
that they are never afraid to die! 

I trust that we may know many returns of this ancieat fes- 
tival; but, more than that, I hope that when, on some future 
Thanksgiving, the last survivor of us all recalls the vivid mem- 
ories of those who have gone before, no grief may dim his vis- 
ion save that which separation always brings, and that he may 
confidently and gratefully anticipate the hour which shall sum- 
mon him to join a reunited family in a brighter world than 
this ; a world which shall seem as the glorious wakening from 



Letters. 



523 



a fevered dream, where sorrow has no dominion, where dis- 
tance cannot separate, where time cannot chill and the tragic 
limitations of earthly being are forever unknown. 
With love to all at home, 

Very truly your son, J. ]. I. 



Washington, March 1.:;. 1874. 
Sweet Heart: 

The day is dreadful — cold, cloudy — with a gusty tempest 
from the north bearing a storm of dust and gravel that blinds, 
wearies, and disgusts. 

The great senator [Charles Sumner] was borne to the Cap- 
itol at nine and placed beneath the canopy in the Rotunda in 
a square casket upon a black base, and covered with the rarest 
and costliest flowers — lilies, violets, japonicas, sniilax, camellias 
in wreaths, garlands, crosses, with evergreens prophetic of im- 
mortality. A dense surge of humanity moved endlessly through 
the corridors, aimlessly, curiously, black, white, ragged, un- 
kempt, chilled with the cold blasts, and filing past the cold, 
livid, discolored face that lay beneath the transparent glass 
like a drowned man under the ice. There were no tears. The 
scene was heartless. Loud talk, vain babbling, and senseless 
laughter echoed through the stony thoroughfares; and ^till the 
throng surged on and on, without beginning and witliout ciul. 

The Senate galleries were densely packed at an early liour. 
Tier above tier, it was a solid mass of faces, relieved against 
the dark drapery behind. At twelve the Senate was called to 
order, the journal read, and some formal business transacted. 
We were presented with black gloves and crape on the left arm. 
Soon the House of Representatives were announced, and look 



524 John James Ingalls. 

their places on the south side of the chamber; then the repre- 
sentatives from Massachusetts with their families as mourners, 
noticeably old Ben Butler with his wife, a tall, graceful, striking- 
looking woman with aristocratic features and bearing; then 
the chief justice and associate justices of the Supreme Court in 
their black gowns ; then the officers of the Army and Navy ; the 
diplomatic corps in plain dress, headed by the formal courtier, 
Sir Edward Thornton ; then President Grant and his Cabinet, 
who sat by the head of the coffin, the silver mountings of which 
shone through the mass of flowers. The President was dressed 
in plain, dark clothes, and sat as expressionless as stone, some- 
times drumming his hat upon his knee. 

The scene was exceedingly impressive, and the solemnities 
were austere, consisting only of prayer and selections read from 
the Scriptures. . At ten minutes past one the amen was pro- 
nounced, and the House, the Court, the President, and the 
guests retired slowly from the chamber, and the Senate ad- 
journed till Tuesday noon. 

I send you some violets from a great purple mass crowned 
with white that exhaled their fragrance in the dim chamber 
that shall know him no more forever. Keep them as a me- 
mento of a great life that has ended to-day. 

I woke at half past two this morning after, bad dreams, 
feverish and restless, and longing for you and for Baby Con- 
stance, who has grown so tenderly in m}' heart. Much of our 
united lives came back to me, incidents forgotten, songs you 
sung to Ruth in winter midnights in the little back room up 
stairs so long ago; looks, caresses; painful, sad regrets for the 
injuries inflicted upon your love by my indifference and cold- 
ness and unkindness; wonder that your love had not ebbed 
away from me and left me stranded in misery forever; hopes 



Letters. ^25 

that we might not either be left long upon this desolate earth 
to mourn the other's loss. Oh, my darling! my heart cries 
out for you and will not be comforted. You must never for- 
sake me, here or hereafter. If you go before me to the undis- 
covered country, guard me, and wait for me. If I precede 
you, search for me till you find me, with entreaties and impor- 
tunities that will permit no denial, but will rescue me, though 
ages intervene, from the profoundest abyss. 

I received your letter this morning in which you speak of 
the excitement about the judgeship, which has now, I suppose, 
finally terminated. Horton could not be appointed for many 
reasons, chiefly because the delegation was against him upon 
general grounds connected with his personal and political 
career. Pomeroy made himself specially obnoxious by med- 
dling in the matter, and at one time I thought I was to be 
beaten, as the President told me he would not appoint Foster, 
and if we did not compromise and agree on some other man. he 
would take charge of the matter himself. The question at last 
became one purely of opposition to me, and the representa- 
tives openly boasted that they had at last got me beaten ; but 
the result has strengthened me greatly here and at home. 
Horton promised the clerkship to a score, I presume, and I am 

glad to know the secret of Mrs. 's advocacy; hut it 

may console her to know that he also promised it to Joe Wil- 
son, Spaulding, Jo. Talbott, and many others, male and female. 
Perhaps the future may have some reward for her fidelity to 
his cause and her support of his fortunes. 

This is a long letter, longer than I intended to inflict ui)on 
you when I began; but I could continue for an hour, did my 
other engagements afford me the time to spare. 



526 John James Ingalls. 

I hope you are comfortable and contented, and that you 
will make your life active and useful, and not brood in solitude 
over our separation. You have the children with you, while I 
have nothing but the memory of you and them to console me 
in my loneliness. 

Write me often, and think always with tender love of 

Your faithful and affectionate Husband. 



Washington, Sunday, May 13. 
My dearest Love: 

Pullman regulates the temperature of his carriages by the 
calendar, and not by the thermometer — no fires after May ist, 
and but one blanket ; so that my journey was not wholly com- 
fortable. Then, at breakfast in the Union Depot at St. Louis, 
Fridav morning, the top windows at the north were open, and 
a cataract of cold, damp air poured down my back into my 
pantaloon pockets and stockings. So that I was chilly and 
goosefleshy all day, and could not get warm through the night. 

From St. Louis to Washington, where I arrived about nine 
p. M. Saturday, I continuously read the letters of the wife 
of Thomas Carlyle, annotated by him after her death. I 
never specially "honed" after him, even in my callow days; 
but the letters are dramatically interesting. They disclose a 
most desolate, gloomy, and lamentable domestic tragedy, and 
are not without instructive admonition. I will send or bring 
them to you. The unavailing penitence of the selfish, dyspep- 
tic, irascible, tyrannical old man, after she had left him forever 
to his gruel and his grumbling, is quite pathetic. She does not 
seem to have loved him much, if at all, indeed, nor to have 



Lktters. 527 

been specially faithful to him, 1 judge; but in one way she was 
his slave, and the record of forty years of servitude is dramatic. 
Good women are so much better than good men, and bad so 
much worse. Where the average lies I do not know. Per- 
haps in gross, the moral aggregate is much the same. 

I came to my old lodgings direct from the station and found 
that Mrs. Crawford had taken the house in addition to her own 
across the street. General Rosecrans is here with his family. 
His wife is paralyzed and unable to move. He occupies my 
old rooms, and his wife and daughter the floor above. I am 
opposite them, on the second floor, in the rooms occupied by 
General Henderson last winter. There are many other guests, 
but unknown to me. 

Going over to the Capitol, I bathed, and was shaved and 
trimmed by the olive-skinned "John," the only barber whose 
attentions I could ever endure without a shrinking shudder. 

Judge Peters had come in from Chicago on the morning 
train, and we had a consultation, resulting in an appointment 
for Monday. 

Mr. Plumb is yet here, and I expect to have an interview 
with him, perhaps this afternoon. 

I see no reason why I may not leave for Haverhill by Thurs- 
day, and so home by the middle of the week thereafter. 

The season is dilatory here also; foliage not being full, and 
the air icy and shivery. 

I feel guilty at going away and leaving you mistress of all 
the confusion at home, but it really seemed unavoidable under 
the circumstances, and the worst appeared to be over. I 
thought of several little things, while awake in the cars the 
other night, that might have been done : a niche for a vase or 
statuette in the stairway in the space between the curved par- 



528 John James Ingalls. 

tition and the chamber wall; an upright register in the south 
library wall, under the lower shelf in the new partition, etc., etc. ; 
but "the wished-for conies too late." Don't forget to have 
the windows all made weather-proof, and the floors planed 
down among the finishing touches, and the well-curb and plat- 
form repaired, and the veranda floors repaired also, but not 
wholly relaid, as Neal will be sure to want to do if not reso- 
lutely restrained. 

I hope the dear little anonymous baby continues to thrive. 
The delicate spark of her life was so near going out wholly that 
I believe her preservation bodes good fortune for her and the 
world into which she so prematurely came. But I babble. So 
good-bye for to-day. 

T hope the children are all obedient. Give them my love. 
Your own J.J.I. 



United States Senate Chamber, 

Washington, May 13, 1881. 
Dear Father: 

I imagine that our dishes are bottom up when it rains not 
more than those of our neighbors. We are all disposed to 
think our misfortunes are exceptional, our diseases peculiar, 
our destinies unprecedented: but the lot of humanity every- 
where is much the same. Great careers are necessarily few; 
vast fortunes must be infrequent; kings and presidents are 
scarce, and even the most exalted in station and estate receive 
about the same average of felicity as the rest of us. I have 
seen all classes and conditions of men, from the lowest to the 
loftiest, and the longer I live the more I am convinced that hap- 
piness is in the individual, and not in his accidents. Many 



Letters. 529 

things seem alluring that attained have no charm, and many 
lives appear humble and obscure that are the vestibule of Par- 
adise. And, after all, whether well or ill, the longest life is but 
a brief pulsation, like the momentary flash of a fireflv in a gar- 
den at night; and whether its transitory torch is to be extin- 
guished forever or to be relighted and burn eternally, we hope 
and dream, but know not. 
Love to the family. 

Very truly your son, J. J. J. 



Atchison, Sunday, January 24, 10 a. m. 
Dear Constance: 

The cold wave seems to have passed off, though I don't 
like to say much about it ; f(;r we had a pleasant day some time 
ago and talked considerably and chuckled over it, and that 
night the temperature sank below zero and stayed there for 
two weeks. It was a struggle for existence. We closed all 
the doors, shut off the hall, cut off the water, had fires in the 
grates, stuffed cotton in all the crevices, and lived like Esqui- 
maux in their igloos. But it really is lovely this morning. I 
went out for a stroll, after breakfast, on the stone walk, in the 
sun. Two fat brown birds hopped about in the branches of 
one of the shrubs, and Jim Crow kept me company, sometimes 
walking alongside, and then going before, and rolling over a 
time or two to attract attention. When I pulled his tail and 
his ears, he growled ferociously, and hissed like a snake, and 
then rolled over again. 

As I stood by the gate, looking down toward Mrs. Crow- 
ley's cabin — she and Tim are both ill with the grip, influenza, 



530 John James Ingalls. 

colds, rheumatism, antiquity, etc. — the pealing bells of St. 
Benedict's broke out into a swelling tumult of exulting mel- 
ody, vibrating and rising and falling, rolling north and south 
and east and west, down the valley and up to the shining 
zenith, and, after an entrancing interval, died away and were 
still. It was quite incredible that some shock-headed Paddy, 
who probably carries a hod or dri\es a dray during the week, 
could, by pulling a rope a few moments, produce such an 
ecstasy of sound on Sunday, without any idea that I would 
write you a letter concerning it. 

Yes, it is aggravating, as you say, to be obliged to suspend 
your studies for a while, at the busy season, too; but it is bet- 
ter than to keep on and break down completely at the end. 
The mind has much influence, and a cheerful spirit is better 
than medicine. Resolve to be well; don't brood upon dark 
thoughts ; throw open the windows of your soul to the sun ; 
take short views of life ; get plenty of air, plain food, and sleep, 
with moderate exercise. 

Write to me if there is anything you want. I should be 
your friend, even if you were not my child. ***** 

I am going away next week, about the ist of February, to 
speak at Ann Arbor, Michigan, in Kentucky, and some other 
places, and shall be absent perhaps two weeks. A letter will 
reach me at the Grand Pacific, Chicago, Tuesday and Wednes- 
day, 2d and 3d, should you write next Sunday. 

Affectionately your Papa. 




<^'N^^rm^/%^ ^.^^ ^^. ^^^Z" 
^ p-^>-y^ ^^^^.^^.. ..3^,^,.^ 







532 John James Ixgalls. 

Atchison. December 15. 
Dear Constance: 

The question about the loss of either of the senses is so 
much a matter of sentiment and individual temperament that 
there is nothing to be said by one that could influence another. 

To me the loss of sight would be the greatest affliction, 
because mv love of Nature and pliysical beauty is so strong. 
Hearing is limited. At a short distance the loudest sounds 
are inaudible. So with taste. It gives delight, but the body 
can be nourished without the sensibility of the palate and the 
tongue. If dumb, we can still write and read and hear. If 
we are unable to perceive the fragrance of flowers, we can yet 
"be charmed with their color and outline. If deaf, we can 
communicate with the eye and the pen. But to be blind is to 
be imprisoned in perpetual darkness; shut out from the uni- 
verse, from the aspects of the earth, the sky, and the sea; 
unable to go or come ; compelled to be led and fed and dressed 
like an infant, and denied the joy of beholding the faces that 
we love. But, after all, we adapt ourselves to these privations 
without much grief. I have seen many blind persons, but 
they are generally cheerful enough, and seem to enjoy life very 
well. 

The soul is independent of the senses. These are the ave- 
nues through which it communicates with others temporarily, 
and are not necessary to its existence. I have no doubt there 
are many senses we do not possess ; many properties of matter 
with which we are unacquainted; many more dimensions 
than length, breadth, and thickness; many more colors than 
those w^hich glow in the rainbow and the rose; many condi- 
tions immediately about and around and within that we do 
not perceive any more than my horse understands history and 



LETTERS. 533 

arithmetic, or than a fish swimming in the ocean comprehends 
the great steamships with their cargoes of men and women and 
merchandise ploughing the waves which are his firmament. 

It is an incomparable morning. The grass glitters with 
thick white frost, and the dense columns of smoke and vapor 
from the town below ascend slowly toward the dazzling sky. 
The vibrations of the convent bell, ringing for nine, linger for 
an instant, cease, and are still. 

Your affectionate Papa. 



Washington, March 5, 1875. 
My dearest Wife: 

The Forty-third Congress ended amid uproar and confusion 
indescribable. 

I went to the Capitol at ten a. m. on Wednesday and re- 
mained until one the next afternoon without sleep and almost 
without eating. I presided much of the time, and was in the 
■chair till within five minutes of the final adjournment. Such 
tumult and turmoil I never witnessed before ; but I got through 
without special difficulty, and was much complimented for 
my coolness and adroit management of the disorderly ele- 
ments. The Vice-President was absolutely helpless and sur- 
rendered in despair, and sent for me to take his place while 
he retired to his room. The attendance in the galleries was 
immense. 

I came home and went to bed at two p. m. and slept till 
eight. Took a light lunch and went again to bed at ten and 
slept till nine this morning. 

The Senate assembled at twelve this noon in extraordinary 
session. The new senators were sworn in, and the proceedings 



534 John James Ingalls. 

were very interesting. The galleries and floor were thronged 
with ladies and strangers. 

Old Andy Johnson, whom I had never seen before, was 
greeted with applause, as was General Burnside, the new sen- 
ator from Rhode Island. We sat an hour, and then adjourned 
till Monday. 

I have taken Scott's seat in the middle aisle, directly across 
from Mr. Conkling. 

The Pinchbeck case is to be considered ; but I do not think 
it will take long to dispose of it, as everybody is anxious to get 
away as soon as possible. 

The weather is inconceivably horrible — cold, wet, raining 
all day and snowing or sleeting all night, with occasional fogs 
thrown in by way of variety. 

How much I long to be at home I cannot tell you. I shall 
leave at the first possible moment that public business will 
permit. I feel somewhat fatigued, now that the stimulus of 
excitement is over; but hope soon to recover my usual elas- 
ticity. I know how much you need me and what a relief it 
will be to you to turn the domestic sceptre over to 

Your affectionate Husband. 



INDEX. 



Page. 

Preface 5 

Introductory 7 

John James Ingalls 17 

Memoir. 

Chapter 1 27 

Chapter II 30 

Chapter III 36 

Chapter IV 39 

Chapter V 45 

Chapter YI 48 

Chapter VII • 56 

Chapter VIII 60 

Albert Dean Richardson 67 

John Brown's Place in History 76 

Eulogy on Senator H. B. Anthony 93 

Happiness 96 

Opportunity 97 

My Spring Residence 9^ 

Blue Grass 100 

Catfish Aristocracy 117 

Regis Loisel 129 

The Last of the Jayhawkers i45 

The "Good-Fellow Girl" i57 

The Annexation of Hawaii 161 

A Nation's Genesis 169 

A Dream of Empire 1 74 

Hallucinations of Despair 178 

^Socialism Is Impossible i8j 

Men Are Not Created Equal 189 

The Poor Man's Chance i95 

The Immortality of the Soul i99 

The Character of General Grant — An Enigma 204 

Why Christianity Has Triumphed 208 

Gettysburg Oration 213 

535 



5 



-6 Index. 



Page. 

Address at Osawatomie 228 

Eulogy on Senator J. B. Beck 263 

Eulogy on Senator B. H. Hill 268- 

Eulogy on Congressman J. N. Burnes 272 

Fiat Justitia 277 

"The Image and Superscription of Caesar" 309 

The Humorous Side of Politics 339 

Famous Feuds 34^ 

The Stormy Days of the Electoral Commission 366 

The Mountains 386 

The Sea 387 

Idyl 389 

Epigrams 390 

Garfield : The Man of the People 395 

Blaine's Life Tragedy 4^5 

Kansas: i5|i — 1891 443 

•'Ad Astra per Aspera" 481 

Kansas 483 

A Photographic Interview 49° 

Letters 520 



